Evaluation of Physicochemical Properties of Sandy-Textured Soils under Smallholder Agricultural Land Use Practices in Sarawak, East Malaysia

Abstract

A study was conducted in the Sabal area, Sarawak, to evaluate the physicochemical properties of sandy-textured soils under smallholder agricultural land uses. Study sites were established under rubber, oil palm, and pepper land uses, in comparison to the adjacent secondary forests. The sandy-textured soils underlain in all agricultural land uses are of Spodosols, based on USDA Soil Taxonomy. The soil properties under secondary forests were strongly acidic with poor nutrient contents. Despite higher bulk density in oil palm farmlands, soil properties in rubber and oil palm land uses showed little variation to those in secondary forests. Conversely, soils under pepper land uses were less acidic with higher nutrient contents at the surface layer, especially P. In addition, soils in the pepper land uses were more compact due to human trampling effects from regular farm works at a localized area. Positive correlations were observed between soil total C and soil total N, soil exchangeable K, soil sum of bases, and soil effective CEC, suggesting that soil total C is the determinant of soil fertility under the agricultural land uses. Meanwhile, insufficient K input in oil palm land uses was observed from the partial nutrient balances estimation. In contrast, P and K did not remain in the soils under pepper land use, although the fertilizers application by the farmers was beyond the crop uptake and removal (harvesting). Because of the siliceous sandy nature (low clay contents) of Spodosols, they are poor in nutrient retention capacity. Hence, maintaining ample supply of organic C is crucial to sustain the productivity and fertility of sandy-textured soils, especially when the litterfall layers covering the E horizon were removed for oil palm and pepper cultivation.

Assessment of Physico-chemical Properties of Soil in Dadrol Block, Shahjahanpur District, Uttar Pradesh, India

“…The available nitrogen decreases with the increasing depth due to the fact it is positively correlated with organic matter content which decreases with depth and might be due to higher pH to the depth. Similar finding were reported by Ho et al, (2019) (8) . As depicted in (28) .As shown in table 5 (20) .…”

Characterizing Soil Penetration Resistance of Planted Sago Palm (Metroxylon spp.) Under Mineral Soils Ecosystem

“…Meanwhile, the root system of sago palm cultivated under peat soils was less developed than that on mineral soils (Miyazaki et al, 2011). The differences in growth of sago palm might be attributed to the lower soil fertility as the soil nutrient contents in the deeper soil layers of mineral soils were lower than those in the upper layers (Perumal et al, 2017;Ho et al, 2019). Moreover, soil compaction at subsoil may cause inhibition of the root development into the deeper layers of the soil where soil pore space is largely restricted.…”

Modeling of Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) Yield and Control Insecticide Exposure in a Semi-Arid Region

“…Thus, farmers are at risk of starvation [39]. Hence, the goal of an alternative farming system is to help increase the availability [40][41][42], affordability [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] of crops and meet their nutritional needs [51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. In Angola, V. unguiculata belongs to the important staple crop.…”