JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN Microbial Biomass Under Different Cattle Slurry Manure Treatment, Moisture and Temperature in Grassland Dutch Soils

The objective of the experiment was to determine the effect of cattle slurry manure with and without additive at different soil moisture and temperature ranges on microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN) in grassland soils. The soils were incubated for seven weeks at three moisture (70, 100 and 130 % FC) and temperature (10, 20, 30 ˚C) range in laboratory. The result indicated that MBC and MBN in different grassland soils were different and were related to neither total soil organic matter, total nitrogen nor CN ratio. MBC and MBN were not affected by manure additive, euromismix (EM). MBC and MBN increased with increase in soil moisture while it decreased with increase in soil temperature in the ranges used in this experiment. It is concluded that manure additive had no effect on microbial biomass which are suitable biological indicator that reacts sensitively to changes in agricultural management that provides advance evidence of slight change in soils long before it can be accurately measured. Keywords