Effect of Grass Covering on Soil Fertility Quality of Apple Orchard in Jixian County Based on a Minimum Data Set
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Graphical Abstract
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Abstract
In order to investigate the influence of grass covering on the soil quality of an apple orchard and explore the soil factors that limiting the apple yield in Jixian County of Shanxi Province, three grass-covering methods (planted grass RC, natural grass ZC and clear farming QG) were selected to study the physical, chemical and enzymatic activities of the orchard soils. Soil fertility quality was assessed by canonical correspondence analysis, principal component analysis, total data set (TDS), minimum data set (MDS) and gray correlation degree (GRA). The results show that:(1) the soil water content and soil pH of the field covered with natural grass significantly increased; (2) soil organic matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and total potassium concentration of the field covered with artificial grass significantly increased; (3) catalase activity was highest under natural grass, polyphenol oxidase and urease activities were the largest under planted grass, and sucrase was the largest under clear farming. (4) there are six indicators (soil bulk density, soil water content, organic matter, available potassium, total phosphorus, urease) in the MDS for soil quality assessment in the study area. The results of soil quality evaluation show that grass covering significantly improved soil quality, and the effect of planted grass cultivation was better than natural grass cultivation. Similar conclusion was found by using the method of GRA. The limiting factors of soil fertility in Jixian County are soil water content, organic matter, and sucrase activity. Organic matter and sucrase activity are the main limiting factors for yield. Increasing organic matter content and soil enzyme activity are the main ways for improving soil fertility in orchard soils.
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