Rupinder Kaur¹, Amandeep Kaur¹, Ram Chand Bhatti¹, C. Nirmala¹, A.N. Singh^1,

Soil degradation due to various natural and anthropogenic activities in arid ecosystems is a matter of serious concern resulted huge impact on functioning of soil ecosystems. Soil microorganisms are underlying entities which mediate the balanced terrestrial nutrient cycling and biotic and abiotic variations. In order to understand the behaviour of such degraded soil towards amendments (organic and inorganic) and deterioration soil quality due to prolonged moisture deficiency, present study was designed to investigate mechanistic role of different kind of amendments; therefore, soil was collected from a barren area under the influence of Aeolian desertification process from north-western part of India (Sirsa, Haryana). In this experiment, proper moisture and favourable environmental conditions were provided to soil under organic and inorganic treatments in an earthen pot according to randomized block design. Whereas, soil under water stress treatment (WS) was kept in fully enclosed area till monitoring period. Results indicated a significant improvement in soil organic carbon (SOC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC) contents and β-glucosidase activity (BG) due to incorporation of organic as well as inorganic sources. This confirms the concurrent responses of these parameters in response to increasing nutrient availability. Moreover, extreme decline of MBC, BG and SOC values due to water deficiency indicates poor microbial activities of the barren soil. Thus, in present study, relationships between SOC with MBC and BG and MBC between BG under different treatments have shown different levels of significance, but corresponding parameters when subjected together (across treatments) exhibited strong linearity suggesting more hopes for carbon (C) sequestration in the arid ecosystem. In conclusion, different kind of treatments may provide different level of nutrient availability and ecological niche, therefore, more information needed to understand mechanism of nutrient conversion under differential responses of treatments to achieve successful restoration of barren soil.

Barren soil, β-glucosidase activity, MBC, arid, SOC, C-sequestration