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Characteristics of Soil Organic Carbon, Total Nitrogen, and C/N Ratio in Chinese Apple Orchards

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.

Article by Shunfeng Ge, et al, from Shandong Agricultural University, Taian, China.

Full access: http://mrw.so/3R3Vwx
Image by Brad Greenlee, from Flickr-cc.

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