Distribution of Selected Soil Properties under Different Land Use Patterns in Terai Region of West Bengal (India)

Abstract

A study was conducted to characterize and find out the important physico-chemical properties and available nutrient status in soils with increasing depth under four different eco-systems (forest land, agricultural land, tea garden and fallow land) in Terai region of West Bengal. It was observed that the available N-P-K contents , exchangeable (Ca + Mg), pH, electrical conductivity (EC), oxidisable Organic Carbon (OC) and total C-H-N-S significantly varied with the depth (0-20 cm, 20-40 cm and 40-60 cm) of soils in most of the cases. The given physico-chemical properties were analyzed by the standard methods. The soils were acidic (4.77-6.24) in reaction and non-saline in character. The available N-P-K content and OC of soils of forest, agricultural and tea-garden were different from the uncultivated fallow land. The survey of the regions showed that the build-up of nutrients (N-P-K, Ca + Mg) varied with the changing ecosystems as reflected by the C/N, C/S and C/H ratios of the soils.