Soil population of plant parasitic nematodes under various cropping sequences

Abstract

Little is known about the factors influencing the population dynamics of plant parasitic nematodes in India. Recently Chawla and Prasad (1973) and Khan et al. (1975, 1976) have investigated the influence of crop monocultures on the build-up of nematode populations, and noted that short term crop rotations were beneficial in reducing their numbers. Alam et al. (1976, 1977) studied the effect of twelve different cropping sequences, spread over for five years, on the population fluctuations of some important genera of plant parasitic nematodes and concluded that no single sequence was effective in reducing over all nematode populations. It seemed desirable to further investigate the effect of other cropping sequences on the population of plant nematodes.