EXPLORING THE ROLE OF ORGANIC FERTILIZERS IN ENHANCING CROP GROWTH AND SOIL HEALTH: BENEFITS, APPLICATIONS, AND SUSTAINABLE FARMING PRACTICES

Abstract

Soil quality deterioration has become one of the fundamental processes leading to soil degradation. The successful enhancement of crop returns and soil condition depends heavily on improving organic fertilizer practices on farms. The complete assessment demands detailed understanding about how crop yield and soil quality reacts to different levels of organic fertilizer application. This research evaluated how organic fertilizer applications affect crop yields besides soil quality and animal foraging patterns across wheat (Triticum aestivum) and maize (Zea mays) rotation fields in fluvo-aquic soil conditions. We utilized six treatment groups consisting of unfertilized N control (UC) and conventional chemical fertilization (TF with 600 N kg ha-1 yr-1) as well as recommended chemical fertilization (RF with 400 N kg ha-1 yr-1) accompanied by no organic applications and three different organic fertilizer application rates at low (RFLO: 15.0 t ha-1 yr-1), medium (RFMO: 30.0 t ha-1 yr-1) and high (RFHO: 45.0 t ha-1 yr-1). Research findings demonstrated that wheat yields increased by 26.4% to 44.6% and corn yield rose by 12.5% to 40.8% when organic fertilizer was used instead of RF plot application methods. Soil organic carbon content expanded to 110.6% at its best compared to the UC plot while reaching 74.0% above values from the chemical fertilizer treatment (TF and RF). Moreover, total nitrogen in the soil grew to 59.2% beyond UC plot values yet achieved 39.2% above chemical fertilizer treatment (TF and RF). Cheap combination use of inorganic and organic fertilizers throughout multiple years greatly enhanced soil enzyme activities of sucrose by 30.1%-51.9%, urease by 28.4%-38.3% and β-1,4-glucosidase by 34.6%-122.4%. The activities of nitrite reductase along with polyphenol oxidase and catalase showed significant reductions ranging from 27.3% to 49.9%, 8.5% to 26.3% and 23.3% to 34.3% thus showing lower activities than inorganic nitrogen fertilizer alone. The application of organic fertilizer led to increased feeding activity of soil animals up to 35.2% to 42.5%, whereas excessive inorganic nitrogen fertilizer caused a decrease in soil animal activity.