Abstract
The physical, chemical and biological properties of a soil define soil quality which is fundamental for soil fertility. The objective of this study was to assess the spatial variability of these soil properties under four different agricultural land uses. The experiment was conducted at the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training,(IAR&T), Nigeria.The land uses evaluated were mono cropping system with cocoa, grazed land, fallow land and a mixed cropping system (horticulture). Samples were taken randomly at each location consisting of 25 georeferenced points each, and bulked to form 5 composite samples for each location.The result showed that the surface soil textures are loamy sand except for the cocoa plantation soils which was sand, all the soils showed alkalinity, ranging from a pHof 7.43 to 8.09. Total Nitrogen ranged from 1.16-1.81kg/ha, Available P ranged from 0.51-1.40 kg/ha while potassium ranged from 0.15-0.25 Cmol/kg. Average microbial biomass C was from 129.18 to 200.04μgCg -1 while the average microbial biomass N was from 12.74 to 19.84 μgNg- 1 . Soil surface maps generated indicate that the soils are deficient in characteristics required for optimal
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