Impact of pesticides on soil microbial diversity and enzymes: A review

Intensive agriculture has been successful owing to its input viz. fertilizers and pesticides along with high yielding varieties. But due to xenobiotic characteristics of pesticides in soil, it may adversely affect the growth of beneficial microorganisms and transformations associated with them. Pesticide contamination is a major concern in current scenario of agriculture. Microorganisms influence important biochemical reactions such as mineralization of organic matter, nitrification, ammonification etc.