Estimation of the soil and plant nutrient budget of the traditional Eucalyptus based agroforestry system in different spacing

Abstract

Traditional tree-integrated farming systems are adopted for the security of food, fodder and fuelwood. Therefore, investigations were carried out to study the leaf litter, wood litter, miscellaneous litter and total litterfall in <em>Eucalyptus</em> based agri-silvicultural system. In this manuscript we observed that the leaf component was the main contributor to the total above-ground biomass in all the planting spacings followed by woody and miscellaneous. The major nutrient pool was in the leaves, and branches . Whereas, the total return of nutrients during both the years study period was in 6×1.5 m spacing returned the highest amount of N (54.04 kg/ha) through leaf litter followed by 3×3 m spacing (53.05 kg/ha), 17×1×1 m spacing (52.85 kg/ha) in 2014-15. Out of which the total amount of these nutrients used by the intercrops was 44.01 (kg/ha) of nitrogen, 9.96 (kg/ha) phosphorus and 68.65 (kg/ha) of potassium respectively. Hence, the remaining amount 45.31 (kg/ha) of nitrogen and 7.05 (kg/ha) of phosphorus. During seven and eighth year of <em>Eucalyptus</em> planted at 3×3 m spacing the farmers can take barley as an intercrop with the <em>Eucalypts terticornis </em>with a spacing of 3×3 m without adding any additional amount of nitrogen and phosphorus into the system. Hence can save some additional cost of fertilizer, which otherwise they have to add to raise intercrops with <em>Eucalyptus</em>.