forest soil characteristics and variability under teak (tectona grandis linn.f) plantations and natural forests in ashanti region, ghana
abstract
the variability of forest soil properties and the number of samples required to achieve
desired levels of precision for estimation of property means have received little attention in
the tropics. highly variable forest soil properties require more intensive sampling and often
have less predictive value for site assessment purposes. the study also compared soils of
natural forests and areas converted to teak (tectona grandis linn. f) plantations (21.3 ± 5.1
years) in the offinso and juaso forest districts in the ashanti region, ghana.
sites selected for this study were in the moist semi-deciduous forest zone and had nearly
identical physiographic characteristics. a simple random sampling procedure was used to
obtain soil samples at each site. in each of three natural forest stands and three teak
plantations, 16 soil pits were examined and soil samples from the 0-20 (major rooting
depth) and 20-40 cm depth were analysed for selected chemical and physical properties.
in the 0-20 cm depth, coefficients of variation varied from 8% (ph) to 72% (available p),
and in the 20-40 cm depth from 16% (ph) to 116% (available p) under teak plantations.
similarly, in the 0-20 cm depth coefficients of variation varied from 11% (ph) to 40%
(exchangeable k) and in the 20-40 cm depth from 10% (bulk density) to 86% (available p)
under natural forests. under both cover types, more samples were required to estimate
means at ±10% allowable error with a confidence level of 95% for chemical properties than
for physical properties.
collections
- retrospective theses [1604]