Abstract:
Micro-organisms decompose herbicides which are biologically active compounds and may acts as a
bioindicator of changes of soil properties. Herbicide application may change the soil microbial population,
thereby affecting the productivity of soils. Hence, in this study a two year field experiment was conducted
during Kharif season of 2016 and 2017 at Agriculture Research Farm, Palli Siksha Bhavana, Sriniketan to
find out an appropriate dose of herbicide for better management of soil in respect to physico-chemical
properties of soil and soil microbial population. The result of this experiment showed that the application of
herbicide Imazethapyr 10% SL has no adverse effects in the physico-chemical properties of Groundnut
cropped soil when compared to control. Irrespective of doses the Imazethapyr 10% SL increased the
population of soil bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in the range of 13.21-21.68%, 18.56-27.36% and 17.70-
21.74 % respectively as against the control of initial population content of that microorganism. The
treatment of Imazethapyr 10% SL @ 150g a.i./ha and Imazethapyr 10% SL @ 100g a.i./ha showed the
positive trends in increase of all the population of bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in soil
