Responses of soil microorganisms, enzyme activities and nutrient contents to inter-row grass ploughing and returning to the field in a natural sod culture apple orchard.

Natural sod culture in orchard is an effective measure to improve the orchard productivity and promote the sustainable production. To explore the effects of inter-row grass ploughing and returning on soil biological cha-racteristics and nutrient contents, we examined the effects of different grass returning to the field on the amount of soil microorganisms, enzyme activities and nitrogen and potassium contents of 0-20 cm soil layer. There are three treatments, cleaning tillage as the control (CK), conventional mowing management (NG), and soil ploughing annually under natural sod culture with conventional mowing condition (NGR) treatments. The results showed that soil microorganisms were dominated by bacteria, followed by actinomycetes, with the least fungi. Compared with CK, both NG and NGR treatments significantly improved the abundance of soil bacteria and fungi, with the strongest effects in NGR treatment, and significantly increased the soil urease, sucrase and catalase activities by 59.0%, 20.7%, 38.3% and 73.5%, 45.9%, 67.8%, respectively. NGR treatment significantly increased soil nitrogen and potassium contents, with the contents of ammonium nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen, particulate organic nitrogen, microbial biomass nitrogen, available potassium and water-soluble potassium being 1.5, 1.8, 1.6, 2.0, 1.3 and 1.4 times of that in CK, respectively. NGR significantly increased soluble sugar content and sugar acid ratio and subsequently improved fruit quality. Overall, NGR increased soil microbial abundance, enzyme activities, nitrogen, potassium contents and fruit quality, which could be a feasible management of inter-row grasses in the natural sod culture apple orchard.果园生草是提高果园生产力、促进果园可持续生产的有效措施。为探究自然生草制苹果园行间草耕翻还田对土壤生物学性状和养分含量的影响,本试验以清耕(CK)为对照,设置草被刈割还田(NG)和草被刈割耕翻还田处理(NGR),研究不同草被还田方式对行间0~20 cm土层土壤微生物数量、酶活性以及不同形态氮、钾含量的影响。结果表明: 苹果园土壤中微生物以细菌占绝对优势,放线菌次之,真菌数量最少;与CK相比,NG和NGR处理均显著提高了土壤细菌和真菌数量,以NGR处理提升效果最显著,显著提高了土壤脲酶、蔗糖酶和过氧化氢酶活性,增幅分别为59.0%、20.7%、38.3%和73.5%、45.9%、67.8%。NGR处理显著提高了土壤氮、钾养分含量,铵态氮、硝态氮、颗粒有机态氮、微生物生物量氮及速效钾和水溶性钾含量分别为CK的1.5、1.8、1.6、2.0、1.3和1.4倍,显著提高了果实可溶性糖含量和糖酸比,进而提高了果实品质。综上,NGR可提高苹果园土壤微生物数量、酶活性、氮钾养分含量和果实品质,是生草制苹果园一种可行的行间草被还田方式。.