Investigation and comparison of soil nutrients under different land uses and crop patterns (Case Study: Eshtehard)

The reduction of soil quality and health due to the lack of proper management or land use change in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran has become a major challenge, which affects the nutritional properties of the soil. Regarding to the importance of nutrients in plant growth, the aim of this study was investigation and comparison of soil nutrients under different agricultural land uses in Eshtehard region. At first, different maps of region including soil map, elevation and land use maps were prepared using ArcGIS 9.3. Five land uses including garden lands, monoculture lands, multiple cropping lands, fallow lands and rangelands were recognized as the treatments. After sampling the soil, nutrients including N, Ca, Mg, K, P were measured in two depths of 0-30 cm and 30-60 cm. In addition, the amount of ESP, as a destructive factor, was assessed in order to determine the corrective or destructive role of different land uses. The results of statistical analysis of data using SPSS software showed that there was a significant difference between nutrients average. In addition, the results showed that rangelands and garden lands had the corrective role in surface and deep layers respectively and monoculture lands had destructive role in the deep layer. Follow lands had the most destructive role in both surface and deep layers. Generally, garden lands, rangeland and multiple cropping lands were determined as the most desirable treatments and follow lands and monoculture lands were determined as the most undesirable treatments.