| dc.description.abstract | In general, forest land has a low fertility potential. The conversion of natural forest into
plantation forest using fast growing species with similar age and composition will accelerate the decline
of it’s soil fertility. Tree species are one of the factors influencing the amount of nutrient accumulation
in forest stand biomass as well as it’s stand age. Nutrients immobilized in vegetation tend to increase
along with the stands maturity and therefore the development of plantations might reduce the soil
quality. The study aims to evaluate and compare soil characteristics between plantation forest with fast
growing species and natural forest. The study was carried out in Borisallo Forest Block, Gowa, South
Sulawesi on forest stand plantation of mangium, sengon, and leda of 17 years of age and on natural
forest at Dystrustepts soil. The collected data were analysed descriptively. The study indicates that soil
structure and consistency under natural stands are better than those of plantation forest. However, bulk
density of natural forest is high and similar between those two types of forest. Chemical characteristics
of soil on leda stand is better than that of the natural forest and the best of all other stands. Only the N
content which is higher in the natural stand than in any other stands in the plantation forest. The nutrient
content of P, Ca, and Mg are higher in leda, whereas mangium has the highest content of K. Sengon
has the least content of all observed nutrients. Orthoclasts, Sanidin, Muscovite and Biotit that sources
of K mineral whereas Hiperstein, Augit, Hornblende, Biotit that sources of Ca and Mg mineral. Besides
that, Labradorit was also found as a source of Mg. The exception of Sanidin, the concentration of these
minerals is so low that it is difficult to believe that it is a supplier of nutrients. Almost all nutrients for both
types of forest are sourced from organic matter. | en_US |
