Management of puddled soil through organic amendments for post-rice mungbean

Soil puddling is considered favorable for rice but unfavorable for post-rice upland crops. The deleterious effects of puddling in post-rice mungbean and management of puddled soil have not been adequately addressed earlier in Bangladesh. This research work was conducted to amend differential puddled soil through organic amendments for improved post-rice mungbean production. The treatments were puddling by four passes, puddling by eight passes, and non-puddling with three organic amendments i.e. control, crop residue, and cow dung. Puddling generally increased bulk density of soil under moisture deficit condition. Puddling had no significant effect on soil pH, total-N, available-P, exchangeable–K, and organic-C. Application of cow dung in the puddle soil increased the amount of N (75.0%), P (35.5%), K (13.3%), and organic-C (38.8%) compared to control. Puddling (eight passes) impaired root growth resulting reduced total dry matter production by 15.6% over non-puddling condition. Cow dung management in differential puddling intensity gave higher root (0.13 g plant-1) and total dry matter (1.16 g plant-1) production of mungbean than without amendment at 60 days after seedling. Puddling intensity adversely affected the number of pods plant-1, thousand-seed weight and seed yield. Cow dung application gave significantly higher number of pods, seeds pod-1 and thousand-seed weight. The mungbean seed yield achieved through cow dung incorporation (8.74 g plant-1) was better than crop residue (7.38 g plant-1) and control (7.34 g plant-1). The adverse effects of puddling intensity on soil strength and bulk density and succeeding plant growth and seed yield of mungbean were highly remarkable. Cow dung management indicated a positive response on the improvement of soil properties and mungbean seed yield.