Distribution of Forms of Sulphur and Their Relationships with Soil Attributes in Tea Growing Soils under Different Agro-climatic Zones of Northeastern India
Ranjan Bera
Inhana Organic Research Foundation, 168 Jodhpur Park, Kolkata - 700068, India
Antara Seal
Inhana Organic Research Foundation, 168 Jodhpur Park, Kolkata - 700068, India
A. K. Chatterjee
Department of Soil Science, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal 731236, India
Pradip Bhattacharyya
Agricultural and Ecological Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Barganda, Giridih 815301, Jharkhand, India
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36956/njas.v1i1.6
Received: 18 March 2019; Published: 18 March 2019
Copyright © 2019 Ranjan Bera, Antara Seal, A. K. Chatterjee, Pradip Bhattacharyya. Published by Nan Yang Academy of Sciences Pte. Ltd..
Abstract
Distribution of different forms of sulphur (S) and carbon-nitrogen-sulphur relationships were studied in surface and subsurface soils of some tea growing areas of Northeastern India. The soils were strongly acidic in reaction (pH - 4.0 to 5.5), low to very high in organic carbon (4 to 54 g kg-1), with cation exchange capacity (8.8 to 19.2 cmol(p+)kg-1) and base saturation (50 to 77 %). Organic S mostly contributed to the total - sulphur (62 to 77 %) followed by Non sulphate S (28.8 to 37.2%) and sulphate S (0.7 to 1.4 %). Except sulphate S, other forms of sulphur showed significant positive correlation among themselves as well as with organic carbon and total nitrogen. The C:N, C:S, N:S and C:N:S ratio varied from 8.2 to 10.0, 6.18 to 71.57, 0.62 to 7.26 and 100:10.1:1.4 to 100:12.2:16.2 respectively. Wider C:N:S ratios in all the surface and sub-surface soils indicated that the major portion of nitrogen and sulphur in tea growing soils of Northeastern India is locked up in organic combination which might pose as a potential threat towards tea plantation if application of sulphur is continuously ignored.
Keywords: Tea soils, Sulphur forms, C, N ratio, S ratio, N