Effect of Agriculture Land Use Practices on Selected Soil Properties and Macro-Aggregate Stability: A Case Study of Coastal Plain Sand, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out in Coastal plain Sands. Southeastern Nigeria to evaluate Macro-aggregate stability under three land-use types; Rubber Plantation (RP). Oil Palm Plantation (OPP, and Forest plot (FP). Random soil and core samples were collected in five Points in each of the three land-use types, given a total of 15 samples, bulked for physical and chemical analyses. Aggregate Separation was done using a nest of four sieve sizes. Macro-aggregate stability indices means weight diameter of dry and wet (MWDd and MWDw), water stability aggregate (WSA), aggregate Clay (AC), exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) and aggregate silt plus Clay (ASC) were calculated. The data were subjected into descriptive statistics and correlation Matrix. The result indicates that sand was the dominant particle size fraction. Macro-aggregate stability indices result revealed that MWDw recorded highest value at RP (1.128) and lowest at FP (0.963). WSA and AC had highest mean value at RP (26.82) and OPP (11.562) and RP (4.85), mean value at OPP(1.54) and OPP (13.35) and lowest value of RP(1.22) and FP(7.35) respectively. Aggregate silt plus clay increases flocculation of soil aggregate, while exchangeable sodium percentage causes disintegration of soil aggregate.