International Journal of Plant & Soil Science

The present study investigated on the effect of zinc solubilizing microorganisms on microbial population in soil of pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan] on vertisol. The field experiment was carried out in experimental field of department of soil science and agricultural chemistry at College of Agriculture, Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Parbhani during kharif season 2018-19 and 2019-20 in factorial randomized block design with 3 replications. The pigeonpea variety BDN-711 was used for study. The studies revealed that, at flowering, pod formation and at harvesting stage significantly the maximum value of soil bacteria were recorded in Pseudomonas striata along with 30 kg ZnSO₄ ha^-1 treated plots (64.00, 74.00 and 57.90 CFU x 10^-7 g^-1 of soil) during 2018-19; (76.11, 87.44 and 68.67 CFU x 10^-7 g^-1 of soil) during 2019-20, respectively. At flowering, pod formation and at harvesting stage significantly the highest fungal population was noticed in treatment receving Trichoderma viride alongwith ZnSO₄ 30 kg ha^-1 (9.67, 8.00 and 8.33 CFU x 10^-4 g^-1 of soil) during 2018-19; (10.67, 9.78 and 8.89 CFU x 10^-4 g^-1 of soil) during 2019-20, respectively. Also, at flowering, pod formation and at harvesting stage the actinomycetes population was found to be increased with the application of different zinc solubilizing cultures which ranged from (27.28 to 32.64, 30.45 to 38.83 and 26.86 to 30.47 CFU X 10^-5g^-1 of soil) during 2018-19; (31.64 to 38.67, 34.67 to 43.61 and 28.36 to 34.81 CFU X 10^-5g^-1 of soil) during 2019-20.