Microbial and physical-chemical properties as influenced by land use change in the conversion of cassava into rubber tree plantation system
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Abstract
Land use change and agricultural management practices could have an impact on soil properties and quality. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of land use change from the previous crop (cassava) to a rubber tree chronosequence on soil quality related to microbial and physical-chemical properties. Microbial properties together with physical-chemical properties, including microbial biomass carbon, soil respiration, microbial quotient (qmic) and microbial metabolic quotient-C (qCO2), which have been considered as effective indicators of the changes in soil quality, were examined. Soil total nitrogen, available phosphorus and exchangeable potassium content were higher in the rubber tree plantation than the cassava plantation, suggesting an improvement in soil microbial biomass efficiency. The highest qmic was found in 11 years rubber tree plantation which indicates most efficiency of converting organic carbon into microbial biomass carbon or carbon losses in soil. Interestingly, no significantly different of qCO2 was found among treatments. These findings suggested that soil quality related to microbial properties was not responsive to land use change from cassava to rubber tree.
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References
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