Effect of land rehabilitation on physicochemical and microbial properties of a sodic soil
This study was carried out at Banthra Research Station (BRS) of the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow. The goals were (1) to evaluate the effect of long term (5 decades) rehabilitation of sodic land through cropping system on soil
properties) of rehabilitated sodic land (RSL) were compared with adjacent degraded sodic land (DSL) and non-sodic soil (NSS). Microbial biomass and enzyme activities were negatively correlated with soil sodicity parameters : pH, EC, exchangeable sodium
percentage (ESP) and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), except alkaline phosphatase activity. Rehabilitation of degraded sodic land through cropping showed 79% (mean gain %) improvement in soil quality. It is concluded that rehabilitation of degraded sodic lands