Soil properties in jhum field
The carbon in the soil helps in the formation of soil structure, stores
the water and nutrients that need for plant roots and soil
microorganisms to grow. The availability of high C exuded by roots
increases the microbial growth pattern, microbial abundance, and
diversity in the rhizospheric soil than the non- rhizospheric soil or BS
(Fig 8 a,b) (66, 67).
In 2008, Marcel et al. (68) hypothesized that microbes play a
significant role in productivity in the nutrient-poor ecosystem, and
therefore, microbial diversity is negatively correlated with nutrient
availability. In our study in the jhum ecosystem, we have
observed that microbial diversity is changing in different fallow
periods along with rhizosphere niches of the crops grown in the field.
The microbial diversity has increased between the 5 to 8 years fallow
periods, but it gradually decreases and becomes stable in 20 years
fallow periods. Since the long term fallow period contains more humus
and nutrient-rich environment than short term fallow periods jhumfield soil. Interestingly, it is in line with the hypothesis. Our study
has generated interesting data on dynamics of bacterial diversity in
crop rhizosphere niches and in stressed soil ecosystems, and these data
indicate a more supporting role of bacterial community to crops grown in
the stressed soil system. Our study might also explain why microbial
inoculum is essential for better crop performance in the future
nutrient-poor soil ecosystem.