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Spatial Distribution of Surface Soil Acidity, Electrical Conductivity, Soil Organic Carbon Content and Exchangeable Potassium, Calcium and Magnesium in Some Cropped Acid Soils of India
Author(s) -
Behera Sanjib Kumar,
Shukla Arvind Kumar
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
land degradation and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1099-145X
pISSN - 1085-3278
DOI - 10.1002/ldr.2306
Subject(s) - arable land , soil ph , soil water , cation exchange capacity , total organic carbon , potassium , soil test , soil series , soil science , soil carbon , magnesium , chemistry , environmental science , environmental chemistry , agronomy , soil classification , ecology , biology , agriculture , organic chemistry
Land degradation is a global problem. Best management of degraded land can be done by evaluating the spatial variability of soil properties including chemical properties of degraded land and mapping such variations. Since, a significant portion of arable land in India is chemically degraded due to soil acidity; the present study was conducted to study the spatial variability of soil acidity (pH), electrical conductivity (EC), soil organic carbon (OC) content, exchangeable potassium (K + ), calcium (Ca 2+ ) and magnesium (Mg 2+ ) contents in some cropped acid soils of India. A total of four hundred (one hundred from each series) representative surface (0–0.15 m depth) soil samples were collected from arable soils representing four soil series namely Hariharapur, Debatoli, Rajpora and Neeleswaram situated in Orissa, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala states of India, respectively, and were analyzed. Soil acidity (pH between 3.90 and 6.45) showed a low variability, in contrast to other soil properties, which showed moderate variability. The coefficients of variation varied from 32.4 to 74.3, 31.2 to 50.9, 45.6 to 100, 71.9 to 93.0 and 59.0 to 79.8% for EC (mean between 0.05 and 0.09 dS m −1 ), OC (mean between 0.29 to 1.86%), exchangeable K + (mean between 39.1 and 77.7 mg kg −1 ), Ca 2+ (mean between 148 and 293 mg kg −1 ) and Mg 2+ (mean between 111 and 191 mg kg −1 ), respectively. Soil pH and OC content were positively and significantly correlated with exchangeable K + , Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ content. Geostatistical analysis revealed that the best fit models were gaussian, exponential and spherical for different soil properties with moderate to strong spatial dependency. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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