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Microbial communities are important for the functioning of the ecosystem, both in relation to direct interactions with the plants and with regard to nutrient and organic matter recycling. A study in field condition was undertaken in Kashmir valley to reveal the effect of various temperate fruit crops viz. apricot, peach, plum and cherry along with a control (no-plantation) on microbial biomass carbon (MBC), nitrogen (MBN), phosphorus (MBP) and dehydrogenase, phosphomonoesterase (acid and alkaline) and urease activities in soil at two different depths (0-20 and 21-40 cm). All the fruit crops showed a sharp decline in microbial biomass and enzyme activities with the increase in soil depth. Each of the four fruit crops showed significant (p<0.05) impact on MBC over the control and the maximum MBC was recorded in plum (1000 mg kg -1 ) and the lowest value was observed in control (457 mg kg -1 ), at the surface layer. Since there is a relationship between MBC and MBN, the similar trend was also observed in MBN as in case of MBC. For MBP, fruit crops showed any significant effect neither on surface soil, nor on subsurface soil layer over control. At the surface layer, unlike microbial biomass the highest dehydrogenase activity was observed in peach (318 µg TPF g soil -1 h -1 ) and the lowest value (166 µg TPF g soil -1 h -1 ) was attained at control plot. Maximum alkaline phosphomonoesterase activity was observed in peach (381 µg PNP g soil -1 h -1 ), although for acid phosphomonoesterase the highest value recorded in apricot (306 µg PNP g soil -1 hr -1 ), at surface soil. A significant positive correlation (p <0.01) was observed amongst MBC, MBN and MBP. Both the phosphomonoesterase activities were significantly (p <0.05) correlated with MBP in soil. It can be concluded that the influence of the studied fruit crops on the soil was not uniform, in terms of the measured parameters.

An experimental study was conducted during 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 at Horticulture Research Station, Mondouri, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Monhanpur, Nadia, West Bengal, India, to evaluate the performance of fourteen different bush type French bean genotypes for seed yield and to study varietal characterization based on plant morphology. The genotypes, studied under this experiment were namely, Abhay, Shillong Local-3, Arjun, Selection-9, Arka Anoop, Arka Komal, Badshah, Anupam, Arka Suvidha, Falguni, Sonali, Local, Victoria and Vaishnavi-264. From overall point of view of the outcome of the experiment, it has been revealed that genotype with relatively bolder seeds with more number of seeds per pod, and higher bearing capacity per plant generally gives higher seed yield. Among the genotypes under study, Arka Suvidha was the best one as it produced the highest seed yield (2180.92 kg/ha) and relatively good plant vigour and fairly high seed vigour index (2944.38). Falguni and Mohanpur Local also can be considered promising once for seed production point of view.

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Rice-wheat rotation is the most important cropping system of the Indo-Gangetic plains. On-farm experiment was conducted to reveal the effect of Zn fertilization on yield, uptake of nutrient, utilization efficiency (UE) and grain output per unit of fertilizer use through agronomic efficiency (AE) of P and Zn in rice-wheat rotation. The experiment was conducted with rice (cv. Pusa Basmati 1) and wheat (cv. UP-2425) by imposing twelve treatments involving four different doses of P (0, 20, 40 and 60 kg P 2 O 5 ha -1 ) and three different doses of Zn (0, 2.5 and 5.0 kg Zn ha -1 ) with three replications. The yield of basmati rice was not significantly influenced by P×Zn interactions however, for wheat, a conjoint dose of 60 kg P 2 O 5 and 5 kg Zn ha -1 gave the highest grain yield (5.43 t ha -1 ). Phosphorus utilization efficiency (PUE) of wheat was higher compared to basmati rice however, the reverse was true for zinc utilization efficiency (ZUE). Utilization efficiencies of the two nutrients diminished as their rate of fertilization increased, in both the crops. The AE of applied nutrients, in basmati rice varied from 31.4 to 49.7 kg grain kg -1 P and from 43.2 to 121 kg grain kg -1 Zn. In wheat, AE for P varied from 26.9 to 65.5 kg grain kg -1 and for Zn from 56.4 to 83 kg grain kg -1 . In conclusion, the utilization and agronomic efficiency of P in basmati rice can be increased by using 40 kg P 2 O 5 and 2.5 kg Zn ha -1 .