Informative Value of Microbiological and Biochemical Parameters for Soil Monitoring in Organic Farming
Organic farming is designed not only to provide the population with healthy food, but also to improve the fertility and ecological and biological state of soils. In this regard, monitoring of the ecological and biological state of soils intended for organic agricultural production is becoming more and more important. At the same time, parameters and criteria that make it possible to track changes in the ecological and biological state of soils during the transition from traditional farming to organic farming have not yet been studied enough. The aim of the work is to check the information content of the biochemical and microbiological parameters of soils, as well as the integral indicator calculated on their basis, when identifying differences between fields with organic, traditional farming and background plots. The study was carried out on gray forest soils in the Republic of Tatarstan. The informativeness of microbiological and biochemical parameters was determined by the value of the correlation coefficient of each studied parameter with the level of anthropogenic load in the series: soils of background plots - soils of organic fields - soils of fields with traditional farming. Also, the informativeness of the integral indicator of the soils biological activity, calculated by 3-5 parameters, was determined. As a result of the study, it was found that the informativeness of the parameters differed for soil samples taken in June and September 2020. A significant correlation with changes in anthropogenic load at least in one of the seasons of the year was observed for five parameters: the abundance of bacteria of the genus Azotobacter, the number of micromycetes, the activity of the enzymes catalase, invertase and urease. The optimal set of parameters for calculating the integral indicator of the ecological and biological state of soils, if we consider its informativeness and stability by seasons, is a combination of four parameters: the abundance of bacteria of the genus Azotobacter, the activity of the enzymes invertase, catalase, and urease.