茶树种植对中国东部黄棕壤酸化的影响

Soil acidification is an important process in land degradation around the world as well as in China. Acidification of Alfisols was investigated in the tea gardens with various years of tea cultivation in the eastern China. Cultivation of tea plants caused soil acidification and soil acidity increased with the increase of tea cultivation period. Soil pH of composite samples from cultivated layers decreased by 1.37, 1.62 and 1.85, respectively, after 13, 34 and 54 years of tea plantation, as compared to the surface soil obtained from the unused land. Soil acidification rates at early stages of tea cultivation were found to be higher than those at the later stages. The acidification rate for the period of 0-13 years was as high as 4.40 kmol H⁺ ha^-1 year^-1 for the cultivated layer samples. Soil acidification induced the decrease of soil exchangeable base cations and base cation saturation and thus increased the soil exchangeable acidity. Soil acidification also caused the decrease of soil cation exchange capacity, especially for the 54-year-old tea garden. Soil acidification induced by tea plantation also led to the increase of soil exchangeable Al and soluble Al, which was responsible for the Al toxicity to plants.

Soil acidification of Alfisols as influenced by tea cultivation in eastern China

The effects of long-term (19 years) different land use and fertilization on activity and composition of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) were investigated in a field experiment. The 19-year experiment conducted from 1990 to 2008 involved seven treatments designed: cropping rotation of soybean-corn-corn with no fertilizer (control, CK), recycled manure (RM), fertilizer nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K) (NPK), fertilizer NPK+RM, and no-crop bare land, mowed fallow, and non-mowed fallow. The results showed that the potential nitrification rates of the RM, NPK+RM, mowed fallow, and non-mowed fallow treatments were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than those of the CK and NPK treatments, indicating that the long-term applications of recycled manure and return of plant residues both significantly increased the activity of AOB. Although the application of NPK did not enhance soil potential nitrification because of decreased pH, available K had an important effect on potential nitrification. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) fingerprint profiles showed that no-crop treatments had an increase in the diversity of the AOB community compared to the CK, RM and NPK treatments, implying that agricultural practices, especially tillage, had an adverse effect on the soil AOB community. The NPK+RM treatment had the most diverse DGGE patterns possibly because of the increased available P in this treatment. A phylogenetic analysis showed that most of the DGGE bands derived belonged to Nitrosospira cluster 3, not Nitrosospira cluster 2. These demonstrated that different land use significantly influenced the activity and composition of the AOB community by altering the soil properties, mainly including pH, total C, available K, and available P.