Fertility assessment of soils under different land use in Oguta, Nigeria

Abstract

Soil fertility assessment is essential for effective land management practices. This study was carried out to investigate the impact of three land use types Cassava farm (CF), Oil palm plantation (OPP) and Rubber plantation (RP) on soil properties in Oguta area of Imo State, Nigeria. Randomized sampling technique was implored in the collection of nine soil samples from each of the different land use within a depth of 15cm. Samples obtained from each land use were homogenized to form three composite samples per land use. The data generated from laboratory analysiswere subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA). Sand particles had a mean of 82.7 %, 66.7 % and 76.0 % for soils under CF, OPP and RP respectively. The mean values of silt and clay particles were 8.3 % and 9.0 %; 21.0 % and 12.3 %; 13.0 % and 11.0 % in CF, OPP and RP respectively. The other soil chemical properties did not differ significantly with the exception of pH and exchangeable K. The pH (H₂O) had mean of 6.43, 6.17 and 5.73 of soils under CF, OPP and RP respectively while exchangeable K had mean of 0.38 Cmol/kg for CF, 1.71 Cmol/kg for OPP and 0.61 Cmol/kg for RP. Despite not showing significant difference, OPP and RP have more soil quality attributes than CF. However, the result from this study pointed that land use influence soil properties at various rates. Hence, use of good soil management practices is required to improve the soil quality attributes.