Abstract
The thin layer of soil covering the surface of the earth represents the difference between survival and extinction for most land-based life. Four oil palm blocks of varying ages: 57 years (B-57), 39 years (B-39), 17 years (B-17), and no oil palm block (B-0), which served as the control, were identified and used for the study. The result showed that in B-0, B-17, B-39 and B-57; 7 (22.58%), 10 (32.26%), 8 (25.81%) and 5 (16.13%) soil properties, out of the 31 soil properties, had higher values when compared to one another respectively. Also, the means of the topsoil depths for the different blocks were: B-0 (30cm), B-17 (23cm), B-39 (24cm) and B-57 (28cm). The result showed that oil palm influenced most of the topsoil properties in the study area, especially in B-17, compared to the no oil palm block. B-17 had the highest mean values in most topsoil properties, followed by B-39, B-0 and B-57. The topsoil depth also increased with the age of the oil palm. This has shown that the age of oil palm had a major influence on the topsoil depth and their properties. Oil palm can be used as a soil management technique seeing it improves soil status with time.
Keywords:
values when compared to one another respectively. also
the means of the topsoil
Full Text
The full text of this article is available as a PDF
You can download the PDF version of this article for easier reading and printing.
Download Full Text PDF