The changes of soil carbon, nitrogen and aggregate stability affected by different land ‎uses

The present study was conducted for investigation the trend of soil carbon, total nitrogen and soil aggregate stability changes with increasing depth under different land uses in Alandan area–Sari. The soil samples were taken from soil depths 0-10, 10-20, 20-30, 30-40, 40-50 cm using coring (8 cm diameter) and auger method in each site systematic randomly (n=6). The soil texture, soil pH, the percentage of CaCO3, organic carbon, total nitrogen and geometric mean diameter (soil aggregate stability index) was measured in the laboratory. The result showed that, soil carbon and nitrogen were significantly (p<0.05) affected by soil depth and land use change. However, the geometric mean diameter was only affected by soil depth. The compared means showed that, the amount of carbon, nitrogen and soil aggregate stability index is significantly reduced with increasing soil depth. In the surface soil layers, the highest carbon (4.6%) and nitrogen (0.31%) were found in ash plantation and theirs lowest (2.5 % and 0.15% respectively) were observed in pine plantation. Also, soil organic carbon is significantly (p<0.05) increased with increasing geometric mean diameter.