In the present study, the available stalk number per hectare, stalk diameter, single

stalk weight) and theoretical production of ratoon cane were found to be significantly (P ≤ 0.05) lower than those of plant cane (Table 1). Hunsigi [26] indicated that ratooning practice decreased soil fertility under consecutive sugarcane cropping. Several researchers developed a ‘farming systems’ approach to address the problem of sugarcane cultivation with a major focus on the introduction of rotation breaks and organic amendments and found that these practices induced remarkable Pexidartinib purchase changes in the commnunity composition and structure of the soil biota (bacteria, fungi and nematodes, etc.) [8, 27, 28]. Enzyme activity in Selleckchem FK228 soil is a measure of the soil microbial activity and plays an important role in nutrient cycles and transformations. Therefore, it is used as an indicator of changes into determine changes in quality and productivity of soil [29, 30]. In the present study, five soil enzymes activities involved in nutrition cycling and stress response were assayed. Our data showed that the activities of soil enzymes such as invertase, urease, phosphomonoesterase and peroxidase were significantly

lower (P < 0.05) in ratoon cane soil than in plant cane soil (Table 2). The assessment of microbial functional diversity by carbon substrate utilization patterns has been reported Idoxuridine to be a sensitive approach to detect variability in metabolic potential due to soil management [31]. In the current work, the BIOLOG results showed that ratooning practice led to significant Selleckchem BAY 80-6946 decreases (P < 0.05) in AWCD, Shannon’s diversity, and evenness indices in soil as compared to the

plant cane soil (Table 3). Particularly, there were significantly lower levels (P < 0.05) of carboxyhydrates, amines and amino acids used in ratoon cane soil than in plant cane soil (Table 3). Principal component analysis allowed the differentiation of ratoon cane soil from the control and the plant cane soil. However, the use of BIOLOG ECO microplates to analyze the metabolic diversity of the microbial community represents only the in situ phenomena where only the fast growing microbes are involved, and ignores the catabolic profiles of functionally inactive microorganisms [32]. Preston-Mafham et al. [33] claimed that BIOLOG measurements should be applied in community comparisons rather than in community characterization. The trophic structure and the relationship between its components in soil are still poorly understood as the soil food web and biochemical processes are extraordinarily complex. Comparative metaproteomics was used to study the differences in functional gene expression that are mediated by sugarcane ratooning practice in the rhizosphere ecosystem.