Spatial Variability Of Total Nitrogen Research Articles

Spatial Variability of Total Nitrogen, pH, and Organic Carbon in Organic and Inorganic Farming

AbstractThere have been significant efforts to transform traditional farming into organic farming practices. It is believed that this transformation would guarantee the long term production while it also maintains the environment. Studying the differences between these two practices in the form of maps can be useful for understanding spatially how effective the transformation has been achieved. This is because soil varies in space. The main aim of this research is to study the spatial variability of Total Nitrogen, pH and Organic Carbon in the soil. Methods used in this study consists of : (a) data capture; (b) data input in GIS; (c) processing data using Kriging: (d) analysis and presentation of results. The results showed that : (a)Soil organic content in the study area was generally low suggesting the future warning; (b) Using pH, Organic Carbon and Total N as indicators of assessing the differences between organic and inorganic practices, indicating that there has not been significant different between these practices; (c)The analysis of spatial variability using Kriging in GIS environment could uncover the spatial variability and suggested the way of managing the study area. Keywords: organic farming, inorganic farming, spatial variability, soil properties

The case study of the spatial nitrogen variability of soil endangered by erosion on loess material

The erosion impact on the spatial variability of selected soil properties was picked for the purpose of the research. The chosen locality is situated close to Křenovice (Vyškov district). Sites with soil type chernozem are exploited as arable land almost everywhere in this region. The agricultural production, however, has had staggering impact during last 80 years and has caused many degradation changes of soil properties of chernozems. This work aims to point out the water erosion impact on the spatial variability of total nitrogen, total organic carbon and C/N ratio, at steep grounds with no soil protection from erosion on loess parent material.

Spatial variability and distribution of soil nutrients in a catchment of the Loess Plateau in China

Inappropriate land use is one of the main reasons for soil erosion and nutrient loss in the hilly loess area of the Liudaogou catchment of the Loess Plateau, a typical topography area of hills and gullies. Good management practices, such as the nutrient variability for the different land uses (woodland, grassland, shrub land, farmland, and gully), would help the farmers. One study of the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) spatial analysis and geostatistic analysis was carried out in the catchment. The results showed that the trend of the content of clay and silt in the different soil ranks was: farmland < grassland < shrub land < gully soil. The sandy soil contained fewer nutrients than did the other soils. The farmland contains fewer total phosphorus (TP) and . The spatial dependence of the total nitrogen (TN) and the organic matter (OM) in the sandy soil is strong, but is only moderate in the other types of land use except for OM in farmland. The spatial dependence of TP in the different types of land use patterns is strong too, except in woodland, and the dependence of TP is moderate in grassland. The spatial dependence of and is not strong, especially in woodland, shrub land, and farmland. The dependence of is weak in grassland, gully, and farmland. In the catchment scale, the degree of spatial dependence (GD) is moderate for soil nutrients especially for TN and , but the different nutrients were modelled in different stationary models. The spatial variability of OM, TP, and was modelled by a Gaussian model, and the spatial variability of TN and was modelled by an exponential equation. The nutrients’ distribution in the catchment has been mapped by GIS. From the results, it was seen that annual grass played an important role in the conservation and improvement of soil quality in the Loess Plateau. In addition, the farmland should be given more fertilizer.