Abstract
Fertility capability classification (FCC) was carried out using data obtained from a field survey of acid sands soils in the Niger Delta area of Akwa Ibom State. The soils were studied on the basis of their parent materials, namely, coastal plain sands (CPS), beach ridge sands (BRS), sandstone/shale (SSS) and alluvial deposits (ALD). The result showed that most (60%) of the pedons from CPS had sandy (S) top and loamy (L) sub-soils and were characterized by low cation exchange capacity (CEC) (e), acidic reaction (h) and potassium deficiency (k). Also, all pedons from BRS and SSS had uniformly (top-and sub-soils) sandy (S) profiles, with all BRS pedons also characterized by e, h and k constraints, while SSS pedons all had k as a general constraint to crop production. On the other hand, ALD pedons generally had loamy (L) top-and clayey (C) sub-soils, with k, h and gleying (g) as crop production constraints. Accordingly, the study showed that the dominant FCC units for pedons of the four respective parent materials were as follows: SL ehk for CPS; S ehk for BRS. S hk for SSS and LC ghk for ALD. The result had shown that, in the area of study, the FCC system is efficient in grouping soils according to the kind of problems they present for agronomic management of their chemical and physical properties for optimum land productivity.
Keywords:
fertility capability classification
acid sands
parent materials
agronomic
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