Characterizing Soils under Different Land Use Patterns in Terai Region of West Bengal

A study under four different eco-systems (forest land, agricultural land, tea garden and fallow land) was conducted under Terai situation of West Bengal to characterise the soils with important physico-chemical properties and also to find out the available nutrient status in soils with the increasing depth. It was observed that the available N-P-K of the soils and the exchangeable (Ca⁺² + Mg⁺²), electrical conductivity (EC), oxidisable organic carbon (OC) and total C-H-N-S in soil significantly varied with the depth of soils in most of the cases. The soils were acidic in reaction and non-saline in character. The available N-P-K and OC of soils of forest, agricultural and tea-garden differed with the uncultivated fallow. The survey of the regions showed that the buildup of nutrients (N-P-K, Ca⁺² + Mg⁺²) varied with the changing ecosystems as reflected by the C/N, C/S and C/H ratio of the soils.