ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF LAND USE ON SOME SOIL PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES IN GIREI, ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA
Improper land use and poor soil management practices have become a challenge to an attempt to attain increase in crop production to meet the growing demand for food. Some selected physicochemical properties of soil samples collected from three farm plots in Girei area, was studied. The soil characterization was carried out for properties like the textural class, bulk density, pH, organic matter , water holding capacity, and the cation exchange capacity. The research was conducted on 27 samples obtained from three village locations namely; Bagalchi, Sabongari and Vonoklang designated as plots I, II and III, respectively. The values obtained were subjected to statistical analysis by using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The texture of the soils is sandy-loam with mean soil bulk density value of 1.62g/cm3, the mean soil pH values ranged between 5.82 to 6.21which indicated that the soils are slightly acidic. Soil organic matter was low at values between 1.82% to 1.95% with low cation exchange capacities in the range of 2.55 to 2.70 cmol/kg and water holding capacity between 37.59 to 39.63%. Statistically, it was observed that physicochemical properties of the soils showed no significant difference between the treatments and replications in the study area. This could be as a result of the agricultural land use and management practices carried out in the area. Therefore, there is the need to improve soil organic matter content in the area to improve moisture holding capacity, and cation exchange capacity of the soil in order to retain nutrients for crop growth and increase the crop yields in the study area.
Authors : Tya, T.S.K.
Category : Open Access Volume (Issue) : 6(2) Date Uploaded : 12th March 2021