1Present address GSM DivisionICAR-IGFRI, Jhansi, 284 003, Uttar PradeshIndia
2CESCRA, NRL Building, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110 012DelhiIndia
3Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar, 736 165, West BengalIndia
Department of Environmental Studies, Siksha Bhavana, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, West BengalIndia
*Corresponding author (Email: dibsm107@gmail.com)
Online published on 8 July, 2021.
Cultivated, forest, tea garden and fallow land use in Terai ecosystems of West Bengal were evaluated for the labile, mineralizable, particulate, inorganic and total organic carbon contents. The carbon fractions were dominant in soils of forest and tea gardens compared to the cultivated and fallow land, while differences across the depth of soil were recorded in the forest land only. The total organic carbon was maximum (22.5 g kg−1) in the forest and minimum (12.3 g kg−1) in the cultivated land at 0–40 cm depth. The incubation study for a period of 24 days revealed that the carbon mineralization rate was influenced by incubation period up to 10 days irrespective of the land use types and decreased thereafter with the time of incubation and also decreased with soil depth.
Land use, Organic carbon fraction, Inorganic carbon, Mineralizable carbon
