Assessing soil properties in various agroforestry lands in Kuningan District, West Java, Indonesia using Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS)

Abstract

Abstract. Purnama TJ, Wijayanto N, Wasis B. 2022. Assessing soil properties in various agroforestry lands in Kuningan District, West Java, Indonesia using Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS). Biodiversitas 23: 3012-3021. Land conversion from the forest into intensive agriculture and plantation causes soil degradation. Agroforestry is promoted as a win-win solution to land management that conserves and improves soil quality using a tree-based farming system. This study aimed to evaluate the physical soil quality of various land-use patterns, including agroforestry in Kuningan District, West Java. In doing so, we employed the Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS) method to be compared with laboratory analysis. Soil physical quality of seven land-use types was evaluated, namely natural forest, complex agroforestry of coffee, complex agroforestry of galangal, simple agroforestry of coffee, simple agroforestry of sweet potato, coffee monoculture and maize monoculture. The VESS technique was used to assess the quality of soil structure, whereas the conventional soil analysis method was used to determine soil bulk density and porosity. Other soil properties including soil organic carbon, cation-exchange capacity (CEC), pH, and soil macrofauna and mesofauna as well as dry litter weight, vegetation composition and individuals’ density were also obtained. The results of the VESS method (reflected as Sq value) revealed that the soil physical quality varied, ranging from Sq value of 1.16-3.1. Complex agroforestry of galangal had Sq value of 1.56 which was not significantly different from that of natural forest land (Sq 1.16), implying that both land uses had a similar physical soil quality. The VESS score and the soil property parameters have a reasonable correlation (r) (BD = 0.80, soil porosity = -0.80, SOC = -0.88, CEC = 0.89, diversity of fauna soil index = 0.82). This study shows that a multi-strata agroforestry system can be a strategy for recovering soil quality on degraded lands, and the VESS method can be used to analyze soil quality in these areas.