Tea is one of the world's most consumed beverages and an important crop of many developing countries. Intensive tea cultivation has negative impacts on soil health properties and the environment. While soil acidification in tea plantations is a known severe issue, there is a lack of literature analysis of the ways in which soil acidification affect...
Soil acidification and declining fertility are widespread in sub‐Saharan Africa. Nutrient depletion is mainly related to nutrient mining driven by biomass removal without replenishment of nutrients through use of fertilisers. Concomitant acidification is due to the high ash alkalinity of harvested biomass. We determined the nutrient content and ash...
Forest soil fertility can be defined as a combination of physical, chemical and biological factors characterising the biomass production capacity of the soil. However, numerous ecological variables affect tree growth and the aim of the present study was to investigate the specific influence of soil chemical properties on tree productivity at 49 aci...
To investigate the movement and content of the acid soil Pi fractions at different distances from the green manure (GM) application site at a GM microsite, an incubation experiment was conducted. Stylosanthes GM (10 or 40 ton/ha) was applied with or without phosphate fertilizer (monocalcium phosphate, MCP) at a concentration of 44 kg/ha P, which wa...
Les terres infectées par les Champignons Mycorhiziens Arbusculaires (CMA) ont été appliquées comme inoculum dans des sols marginaux épuisés après quatre saisons consécutives de manioc dans les jachères herbeuses des zones de forêts tropicales humides. Deux essais expérimentaux conduits suivant un dispositif factoriel avaient permis de comparer deux...
Soil acidity is a major constraint for crop production on highly weathered tropical soils characterized by high Al toxicity, low cation exchange capacity and low P availability to plants. To address these constraints, we compared the effects on crop production and soil properties of liming and adding biochar. Experiments were conducted under field ...
Published in Agronomy for Sustainable Development
It is widely assumed that agricultural practices have a major impact on soil living organisms. However, the impact of agricultural practices on soil microbes is poorly known, notably for species richness, evenness, and taxonomic composition. The taxonomic diversity and composition of soil indigenous microbial community can be assessed now using pyr...
In north-eastern Laos, the savannah grasslands of the Plain of Jars cover vast areas of potentially cultivable land. However, soil acidity, low inherent fertility, and the absence of alternatives to tillage represent significant constraints to the development of sustainable smallholder agriculture. Our objective was to evaluate the potential for co...
Although soils generally contain a large amount of total P, only a small proportion is immediately available for plant uptake making it a major constraint on crop production in many tropical countries. Free - living bacteria and fungi can mobilize o rthophosphate from either organic or inorganic P sources such as Phosphate Rock (PR). These phosphat...
Published in Environmental Chemistry Letters
Agricultural practices should modify the diversity of soil microbes. However, the precise relationships between soil properties and microbial diversity are poorly known. Here, we study the effect of agricultural management on soil microbial diversity and C turnover in tropical grassland of north-eastern Laos. Three years after native grassland conv...
