Comparative study on the properties of soils in relation to vegetational types

Abstract

Soil properties under six types of vegetative covers, evergreen, semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forests, and plantations of teak, eucalypt and rubber showed that they differed significantly. Soils in the natural forests have higher water holding capacity, cation exchange capacity, organic carbon, N, PzOs, K2O and CaO and MgO. Soils in the plantations, on the other hand, possess greater accumulation of gravel, contain highest amounts of FezOs and AhCb. Organic carbon and N contents up to an appreciable depth were considerable in soils under natural forests. It was found that growing eucalypt after clearfelling natural forests has deleterious effect on soil properties.