Changes in the soil after clearing tropical forest

Summary

About one-and-a-half acres of tropical forest, of known mass and chemical composition, was cleared and burned. Soil changes during clearing and two years' cropping were studied.

Following burning, approximately all the K, Ca, and Mg in the vegetation were accounted for by the rise in exchangeable K, Ca, and Mg in the soil. There was a marked rise in soil pH. A small but significant increase in C and N was attributed to admixture of parts of the vegetation with the soil.

Following cultivation, there was a rapid loss of nutrients by leaching and erosion during the first year and a substantial loss of K and Mg, but smaller loss of Ca in the second year. Losses of calcium were less and of potassium more under the local practice of shifting cultivation than under cultivation treatments involving clearing of roots followed by bare fallow or a maize-cassava rotation. Depths of cultivation had little effect on nutrient losses. Losses of organic matter in the first year were rapid due to oxidation of unhumified material. They were much reduced in the second year. Greater production of food was obtained from the maize-cassava rotation than by local practice.