Physico-Chemical Properties and Fertility Status of Forest Soils under Aez-29 (Northern and Eastern Hills) of Bangladesh

Soil properties influence land management practices and differ in regions with diverse topography and ecological variations. An experiment was conducted at the Department of Soil Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh with 16 soil samples collected at 0-15 cm depth from various hilly locations of three districts of AEZ-29 (Northern and Eastern Hills) covering 12 series to assess their physical, chemical and fertility properties. Most of the soils were sandy loam in texture, strongly acidic to very strongly acidic (pH 4.23-5.46) and non-saline. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) was very low to medium with an average of 7.31 cmolc kg-1 and organic matter (OM) status was medium with mean of 2.62%. The soils had very low to low levels (0.07-0.16%) of total nitrogen (N) and available phosphorus (P) content (1.29-10.9 mg kg-1) but low to medium level (10.33-22.51 mg kg-1) of available sulphur (S). Besides, very low to very high levels of exchangeable potassium (K), calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) with averages of 0.34, 3.10 and 1.64 cmolc kg-1, respectively, were observed. The status of available iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) in all the soils were very high ranging from 20-108 and 24-217 mg kg-1, respectively. The soils showed medium or low to very high levels of available zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and boron (B) with averages of 2.64, 0.74 and 0.61 mg kg-1, respectively. The variations in physico-chemical and fertility properties of these soils might be due to variation in parent material, land uses and soil erosion. Among different soil series, Sitakundu showed the maximum values of pH, CEC, OM, total N, exchangeable K, Ca and Mg and available B. Although some of the hill soils seemed to be inherently fertile, proper fertilizer management especially for macronutrients, liming and erosion control practices are crucial for agricultural crop production. SAARC J. Agric., 22(2): 81-98 (2024)