Changes in soil chemical properties due to conversion of rubber plantation land to food crops with a slash-and-burn system in the regency of Sijunjung, West Sumatera Indonesia

Abstract

The Rubber plantation area is an agroforestry cover area that resembles a forest cover area. Recently, there have been many land conversions, both from forests to intensive agricultural areas, agroforestry to intensive agricultural areas. Land conversion is mostly carried out by the slash-and-burn method with negative impacts causing land degradation. This study was aimed to determine changes in several parameters of chemical properties on land that has undergone burning. This research had been conducted from April to August 2022 in Nagari Padang Laweh, Koto VII District, Sijunjung Regency. Then continued at the Soil Chemistry Laboratory of the Faculty of Agriculture, Andalas University. Soil samples were taken from three land uses, namely, Rubber fields, former Rubber plants that had been cut down and former Rubber plants that had been planted with Corn on the same slopes. The data obtained from the results of the analysis were processed using microsoft excel and read with a table of criteria for soil chemical properties. The results showed a decrease in several parameters of soil chemical properties on land that was converted by the slash-and-burn method. After the land was planted with food crops, there was an increase in some of the parameters of chemical properties studied.