CN Mbah and FI Idike
Abstract
Changes in agricultural practices influence how much and at what rate carbon is stored in or released from soils. We examined the carbon storage at two soil depths (0-5cm and 5-20cm) in four agricultural practices namely: natural undisturbed forest, Gmelina arborea forest, alley crop farming and sewage sludge dumpsite in southeastern Nigeria. At both depths the soil ph, bulk density, total porosity, water holding capacity and sand fraction (gkg-1) showed low variation while silt + clay fraction was observed to vary moderately. Total carbon stored in soil was highest in natural uncultivated forest with 37%, 62% and 27% increase relative to alley cropping, sewage sludge dump and Gmelina arborea forest, respectively. Results also showed that forests and alley cropping can store large quantities of C in soils while sewage sludge is not effective in storing large quantities of C