Assessment of effects of controlled land use types on soil quality using inferential method

The experiment was carried out to study the effect of improved land use types on soil quality. Surface soils were collected from four land use types including: cowpea, pasture, gliricidia and secondary forest which were used as the control. The samples were subjected to physical and chemical analyses. The extent of change in soil quality was assessed using inferential method. The results showed that cowpea soil was most degraded while gliricidia improved the soil quality significantly in organic C content. The inferential method showed that the most degraded soil parameter was aggregate stability, which under cowpea was 75.3% degradation. Eight properties were higher in soil quality than the control under gliricidia. The properties include moisture content, %C, CEC with organic matter contributing the highest (42.3%) change in soil fertility. All the properties were inferior to secondary forest in bulk density, porosity and hydraulic conductivity. The improved land uses quality compared favorably with natural vegetation with exception of aggregate stability in cowpea plot. The order of soil quality improvement was gliricidia > pasture > cowpea.