Soil organic carbon
and nitrogen are used as indexes of soil quality assessment and sustainable
land use management. They not only can reflect the soil fertility level, but
can also explain the regional ecological system evolution. The relationship
between them can be represented as soil C/N ratio, which is a sensitive
indicator of soil quality and for assessing carbon and nitrogen nutrition
cycling of soils.
In this study, the
authors studied the characteristics of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen
by investigating a large number of apple orchards in major apple production
areas in China. High apple orchard soil organic carbon content was
observed in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, and Yunnan, whereas low
content was found in the provinces of Shandong, Henan, Hebei, and Shaanxi, with
the values ranging between 6.44 and 7.76 g·kg-1. Similar to soil
organic carbon, soil total nitrogen content also exhibited obvious differences
in the 12 major apple producing provinces. Shandong apple orchard soil had the
highest total nitrogen content (1.26 g·kg-1), followed by Beijing
(1.23 g·kg-1). No significant difference was noted between these two
regions, but their total nitrogen content was significantly higher than the
other nine provinces, excluding Yunnan. The soil total nitrogen content for
Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Hebei, Henan, and Gansu was between 0.87 and 1.03 g·kg-1,
which was significantly lower than that in Shandong and Beijing, but
significantly higher than that in Liaoning, Shanxi, and Shaanxi. Six provinces
exhibited apple orchard soil C/N ratio higher than 10, including Heilongjiang (15.42),
Xinjiang (13.38), Ningxia (14.45), Liaoning (12.24), Yunnan (11.03),
and Gansu (10.63). The soil C/N ratio was below 10 in the
remaining six provinces, in which the highest was found in Shaanxi (9.47),
followed by Beijing (8.98), Henan (7.99), and Shanxi (7.62),
and the lowest was found in Hebei (6.80) and Shandong (6.05).
In conclusion, more
efforts should be given to increase soil C/N ratio by increasing the
application of organic manure or straw to improve the level of soil organic
carbon.
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Image by Brad
Greenlee, from Flickr-cc.
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