In this study, microbial biomass and its activity were evaluated on a soil submitted to crop rotations with wheat/soybean and wheat/maize under the no-tillage and conventional tillage systems. The evaluation was performed on an experiment established since 1976 at the Experimental Station of Instituto Agronômico do Paraná (IAPAR), Londrina (PR), Brazil. Soil samples were taken in the plough layer (0-15 cm) ten days after planting and seven days before harvesting summer and winter crops during 1992, 1993 and 1994. The basal respiration and the microbial biomass carbon were evaluated by the fumigation-incubation method, and the microbial biomass nitrogen was evaluated by fumigation-extraction, the determination of the metabolic coefficient and the relation Cmic/Corg of the soil. There were few significant differences on the parameters related above as a result of the different crop rotations. However, when compared with the conventional tillage, the plots under the no-tillage system have shown increases of 118 and 101% on carbon and nitrogen microbial biomass, respectively, of 73% on basal respiration and of 96% on the relation Cmic/Corg, while the metabolic quotient (qCO2) has decreased by 28%. The continuous use of the no-tillage system, either under wheat/soybean or wheat/maize crop rotation resulted in increases in microbial biomass and decreases in microbial respiration, therefore having measurable long term effects on the increase of soil C content. Consequently, microbial biomass has shown to be a good indicator to evaluate the effects of long term management on soil alteration.
organic carbon; no-tillage; conventional tillage; metabolic quotient; ratio Cmic/Corg