Potential Biomass Pools and Edaphic Properties of Plantation Forest in Tripura, India

Abstract

Plantation forest is a major land use land cover in India and have significant carbon sequestration capacity. Forestry plantation also influences edaphic properties like bulk density, soil pH, temperature and moisture content. We estimated the biomass carbon stock and Soil Organic Carbon stock in forestry plantations and establish relation between the plantations  and some selected edaphic properties. Fifty transects (10 in each plantation) were laid in five (10x5) different forestry plantations. Tree biomass was estimated by using species specific regression equations available in the literature.  SOC content of soil was estimated on unit area basis, for specific depth interval. We used Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) to find correlations, between the plantation biomass carbon pool and the edaphic factors. The total AGB differed among the plantations (ANOVA, F _{4, 49} = 29.47, P< 0.01). Overall the soil carbon (%) significantly differed among the plantations and its value was highest and lowest for HB (1.18) and TG (0.65), respectively. The CCA output showed that the biomass C pool–edaphic correlations were low, of which eigenvalues were 0.017 for the first axis, 0.002 for second axis, 0.001 for third axis and 0.0001 for the fourth axis. Soil to plant carbon  ration indicate  that the plantation systems of the state are vulnerable in terms of sequestration and stocking  of carbon from the disturbances. So, we should think of possibilities of increasing their carbon sequestration potential.