As world population grows, the demand for food production increases ultimately creating a huge pressure on our shrinking natural resources. With this increased demand for food researches have realized that conventional farming would neither be able to increase productivity nor would be able to improve the soil quality and there is a need for an alternative farming practice to conserve our environment while sustaining the natural resources. Among the alternative practices, organic farming, which is very popular, aims at reducing the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in order to improve production and ecosystem health. The aim of our paper is to compare the long term effects of conventional and the alternative organic farming practices on soil quality and crop productivity as they are considered to be two major indices that measure agricultural sustainability on long term basis. Therefore, many studies around the world are evaluating the organic farming practices as an alternative was found to be superior in their physical, chemical and biological properties than their conventional counterparts. In addition, the studies showed that the organic farming practices are economically viable in the long term for both crop productivity and environmental sustainability.

Sheoran et al.: Long term effect of farming practices on microbial biomass carbon, enzyme activities and microbial populations in different textured soils -3669 -

The study was carried to determine the mineralogy of soils of different geomorphic units for providing the more detailed information needed to improve agricultural production in north-eastern part of Haryana. The soils of the study area were slightly acidic to strongly alkaline in reaction (6-9.4). The cation exchange capacity and electrical conductivity varied from 3.10-26.80 cmol (+) kg-1 and 0.16-1.20 dSm-1, respectively. In general, the soils were siliceous in nature with SiO2 ranging from 68.60 to 87.90 percent. The soil samples from surface and subsurface diagnostic horizons were studied through X-ray diffraction. In fine sand, quartz was the dominant mineral followed by feldspars, muscovite, hornblende, tourmaline, zircon, biotite, iron ores and sphene. In silt fraction, quartz was the dominant mineral followed by mica, feldspars, chlorite, kaolinite, interstratified and traces of smectite and vermiculite. Semi-quantitative estimation of clay fraction indicated that illite was the single dominant mineral in the clay fraction of these pedons, however, its quantity was less in alluvial plains (28-30 %) compared to Shiwalik hills (36-49 %). Next to illite, a high amount of smectite (14-20 %) and vermiculite (11-17 %) were observed in clays of alluvial plains of Ghaggar (recent and old) whereas in Shiwalik hills (top and valley) these minerals were detected in small amount (6-11 %). Fairly good amount of kaolinite (10-17 %) and small amount of chlorite (4-11 %) were uniformly distributed in soil clays irrespective of geomorphic units showing their detrital origin. Medium intensity broad peaks in higher range diffractograms (14-24 A˚) indicated the presence of regular and irregular interstratified minerals in old alluvial plains of Ghaggar.

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The long-term effect of organic farming practices were evaluated on soil organic carbon stocks (SCS) and its fractions in texturally divergent soils of Haryana. Surface (0-15 cm) soil samples were collected from 25 organic farms and adjoining conventional farms from 11 districts of Haryana. Soil samples were analyzed for pH, EC, calcium carbonate (CaCO3), soil organic carbon (SOC) and its fractions, viz. light fraction C (LOC), particulate organic C (POC) and mineral associated C (MOC). Results revealed that shifting from conventional to organic farming had no effect on soil pH and EC but reduced the CaCO3 significantly (P<0.05). Soil under organic farming exhibited a significant increase in the SOC from 5.1 to 6.2 g/kg and SCS from 11.2 to 13.3 Mg/ha as compared to soils under conventional farming. The light fraction C was most sensitive to management practices, followed by POC and MOC fraction. The magnitude of increase in LOC, POC and MOC under organic soils was 48.9, 23.6 and 14.7%, respectively as compared to conventionally managed soils. Different organic carbon pools in various fractions followed the order MOC> POC> LOC. The study concluded that shift from conventional to organic farming could be adopted or promoted for sustainable management of soil organic C stocks.

Generation of spatio-temporal information such as land use system and management practices is one of the key ingredients for carrying out the regional level agro-ecosystem modelling. However, at the regional level availability of such data is scarce, where analysis of a cropping system is essential and a pre-requisite for studying the overall sustainability of the agricultural production system. The present investigation was carried out to identify the actually practised cropping pattern and their mapping in Hisar district of Haryana (India) using Multi-Data Approach (MDA). Multi-date sentinel-1 for the rabi season of 2019 was classified using multi-phase unsupervised classification approach and classes of interest were identified. Finally, classified images were subjected to logical combinations which helped in generating crop classification maps and statistics. Results showed that cropping pattern of the district exhibited huge variations and area under wheat was observed to be highest (204.76 thousand ha) in comparison to mustard crop (64.42 thousand ha) and least was under the sugarcane crop (0.97 thousand ha). Some other crops like vegetables and horticultural crops were also identified during this period, but the major crops that were identified during rabi 2019 were wheat and mustard. Hence, regional crop classification using sentinel-1 data appears to be a valuable tool for predicting a specific regions cropping pattern, which is considered to be the most significant aspect of an agricultural production system.

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