Agricultural Reviews

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Agricultural Reviews, volume 29 issue 1 (march 2008) : 1 - 10

IMPACT OF SEWAGE SLUDGE APPLICATION ON SOIL MICROBIAL BIOMASS, MICROBIAL PROCESSES AND PLANT GROWTH- A REVIEW

Sneh Goyal, Meenu Walia, R. Gera, K.K. Kapoor, B.S. Kundu
1Department of Microbiology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University. Hisar 125 004.
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Cite article:- Goyal Sneh, Walia Meenu, Gera R., Kapoor K.K., Kundu B.S. (2024). IMPACT OF SEWAGE SLUDGE APPLICATION ON SOIL MICROBIAL BIOMASS, MICROBIAL PROCESSES AND PLANT GROWTH- A REVIEW. Agricultural Reviews. 29(1): 1 - 10. doi: .
Sewage sludge is a rich source of plant nutrients (C, N, P and K). Beside these sludge often
contains heavy metals like Zn, Cu, Fe, Cd, Pd, Ni, Hg and Cr. Some of these metals at low
concentration are essential micronutrients. The repeated addition of sludge contaminated with
heavy metals may lead to build up of heavy metals in soil and thereby exert adverse effects on soil
health. The concentrations of heavy metals close to or less than current permissible limits have no
effect on microbial biomass carbon and other activities. Soil microbial biomass carbon and activities
increased with the application of uncontaminated sewage sludge. But the application of metal
contaminated sewage sludge leads to the decline in microbial biomass C and N. At higher level
metal contaminated sewage sludge resulted in the accumulation of organic matter due to less
degradation or carbon dioxide evolution. The urease and dehydrogenase activities are adversely
affected while other enzyme activities stimulated by metal contaminated sewage sludge. Soil microbial community structure and plant growth are also adversely affected by metal contaminated sewage sludge.
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