The healthy orchards in the selected study areas were mostly located in the high altitude regions with clay and clay loam type soil textures and the declining orchards on the other hand were mostly found in the low altitude areas and have light texture soils (Table 1). Soil pH, SOC, AvlN, AvlP and AvlK content in those healthy orchard soils were significantly (P≤0.05) higher than the other orchards (Table 2). Soil pH in the declining orchards were very low (4.69 pH), AvlN, AvlP and AvlK in declining orchards were also found to be low to moderate range. Similar observations were also reported by various researchers, where the health and productivity of the crop, whether field or fruit crop depends on the nutritional status of the soil
(Obreza et al., 2008; Han et al., 2008).
Soil biological attributes in different Khasi mandarin orchard types
Analysis of the microbial biomass directly or indirectly determines the active nutrient status of the soil, mobilization and availability to the crops determining the quality of the soil
(Deng et al., 2000). MB-C, -N and -P in the present study were also significantly higher (
P≤0.05) in bearing old orchards, bearing healthy orchards and bearing old orchards respectively (Table 2), than the declining orchards. The higher microbial biomass in the study signifies the productivity of the soil, which is reflected in the growth, development and performance of the Khasi mandarin under study.
The enzyme activities are used as the index to microbial activity and are often considered to be the sensitive indicators for management-induced changes in soil fertility and stress
(Wlodarczyk et al., 2002). Enzyme DHA is an index for total microbial activity and PHA, a key enzyme for hydrolyzing the organic phosphorus compounds
(Pascual et al., 2002). The median values and the distribution of data on the microbial activities
viz. dehydrogenase activity (DHA) and acid phosphatase activity (PHA), basal respiration (BAS) and metabolic quotient (MQ-qCO
2) for the study areas were illustrated in Fig 1.
The enzyme activities in the present study corroborated with the earlier reports and higher activities were observed in those orchard types where the soil nutritional statuses and microbial biomass were higher
(Zhang et al., 2007). The MQ show the stress condition in soil and higher amount of MQ in declining orchards, indicated that imbalance nutrient and disturbance in soil has negative effect on the efficiency of microbial activities and show high MQ.
Laik et al., (2009) showed that higher soil respiration was observed in higher microbial biomass with enhanced soil microbial activities; identical results were also observed in the present study.
VAM colonization pattern in roots and viable microbial population in rhizospheric soils of Khasi mandarin plants
VAM infection type (Fig 2) and per cent infection in 5 types of Khasi mandarin plants were presented in Table 3.
The root examination showed that the vesicular (VI) and hyphal (HI) types of root infections were found in all plant types considered. But the arbuscular root infections (AI) were not found in some plant types. Percent infection was observed highest in healthy bearing plants (92.16%) and lowest in declining plants (42.66%). This showed that the clay and clay loam soil textures with higher soil pH levels (5.40 to 5.82 pH- Table 2) favoured the percent colonization more than the sandy clay loam texture soils with lower soil pH (4.69 pH).
The colonization of VAM in the roots (intracellularly) of the citrus plant influences the morphology of the root system, thereby affecting the nutrient uptake and growth and development of the plant
(Wu et al., 2013) and fruit quality
(Nzanza et al., 2012). The per cent colonization of 19-51% was reported to be satisfactory in citrus crops
(Wu and Zou, 2010). This showed that the present study corroborated with the earlier studies and the high colonization in the roots of the healthy bearing plants no doubt had high nutrient content even though the external chemical nutrients were not added and the colonization of the VAM also depends on the land disturbances and soil pH conditions
(Lingfei et al., 2005). The infection observed in the Khasi mandarin roots were usually of vesicular and hyphal types and very few arbuscular infections were observed in few plants. The main reason for the absence of arbuscules (in the root cortex) might be due to the short study period and degeneration of arbuscules within 14 days, another reason might be due to the infection of roots of non-host species, which produced intercellular hyphae and form vesicles only
(Giovannetti and Sbrana, 1998).
The rhizospheric zone is the region influenced by plant roots and microbial activity and is considered to be the dynamic region of plants and microbial interaction
(Kennedy and de Luna, 2004). Viable microbial population enumeration in nutrient agar (NA) media and Jensen agar media are presented in Table 3. The general viable population was highest in the disease infected plants with several types of microbes comparing among the other plant types showed that there was a competition among the microorganisms and might have invaded the beneficial type of population
(Johansson et al., 2004). Similarly, the VAM symbiosis and the quantity and quality of plant root exudates in the rhizospheric zone can effectively influence the microbial structure, composition and activity to a great extent
(Johansson et al., 2004).
Correlation study among different soil attributes observed in Khasi mandarin orchards
Chemical and biological attributes obtained were subjected to pair-wise correlations among themselves, irrespective of Khasi mandarin orchard types (Fig 3).
Soil pH had a positive correlation with AvlN, AvlP, MBC, MBP and PHA (
P<0.05). Similar observations were reported by
Paul et al., (2001), where they showed that soil pH can affect the availability of nutrient elements through microbial activity as well as the decomposition in the soil. MBC had a direct correlation with AvlN, PHA and MQ (
P<0.05). MBN maintain a positive correlation with AvlN, AvlK, DHA, PHA and BAS (
P<0.05) and MBP also positively correlated with AvlP (r=0.76) and PHA (r=0.74). MQ in our study negatively correlated with MBC (r= 0.79,
P<0.05). It was previously reported that labile fractions and their relationships are highly dependent on the land use types, microbial biomass present and the C inputs in the rhizosphere
(Haynes, 2005). DHA also had a positive correlation with PHA (r=0.82, P<0.05) and BAS (r=0.93, P<0.01) and a similar relationships were previously reported by many authors
(Dilly and Nannipieri, 2001;
Sangma et al., 2016).