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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
SOC plays key role in mitigating global climate change and improves land productivity through improved soil properties such as nutrient supply and moisture retention. Studying carbon pools under existing land uses provides baseline data to project C sequestration over time. The present investigation was undertaken to estimate the SOC stock in two dominant soil series under different land uses of North-Eastern Agro-climatic zone of Tamil Nadu. Land uses selected for the study were Forests, Agriculture, Agro-forestry and Plantations. Soil samples were collected from Arasanatham and Kadambady soil series of North-Eastern Agro-climatic zone for estimation of carbon stock. The soil samples were manually fractionated into three aggregate size classes viz., macro-aggregates (250-2000µm), micro-aggregates (53-250 µm) and silt and clay sized fraction (<53 µm). SOC stock was highest under forest land use in the different size fractions viz. macro-sized fraction (76.0 Mg ha-1), micro-sized fraction (76.8 Mg ha-1) and silt+clay sized fraction (78.3 Mg ha-1) at 0-30 cm depth in Arasanatham series. Agriculture land use recorded the lowest SOC stock. In Kadambady series, soil organic carbon stock was highest under forest land use (56.2 Mg ha-1) in macro-sized fraction, micro-sized fraction (57.6 Mg ha-1) and silt+clay sized fraction (58.2 Mg ha-1) at 0-30 cm depth, followed by agro-forestry and plantation. Maximum SOC was retained in the silt+clay sized fraction (< 53 µm) in all the land uses.