New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

---

Biochemical properties of acid soils under native grassland in a temperate humid zone

J. Paz-Ferreiro¹

C. Trasar-Cepeda²

M. C. Leirós¹

S. Seoane¹

F. Gil-Sotres^1*

¹Dpto. Edafología y Q. Agrícola
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

²Dpto. Bioquímica del Suelo
IIAG-CSIC, Apartado 122
E-15780 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

^*Author for correspondence. edgils@usc.es

Abstract The biochemical properties of 29 soils under native grassland in a temperate humid zone (Galicia, north-west Spain) and subject to low intensity management (at least during the last 100 years) were determined with the aim of establishing a reference database to allow future comparative studies of the effect of grassland management on soil quality. Several biochemical properties were quantitatively and qualitatively studied. These properties were: labile carbon, microbial biomass carbon, microbial respiration, metabolic quotient, net nitrogen mineralisation and the potential activities of dehydrogenase, catalase, phosphodiesterase, phosphomonoesterase, casein-protease, BAA-protease, urease, cellulase, β-glucosidase, invertase and arylsulphatase. The values of these properties were generally within the ranges of those reported for grassland soils from other parts of the world, but some properties differed both quantitatively and qualitatively from those of forest climax soils in the same area. An equation showing a balance between soil organic matter content and soil biochemical properties was obtained, indicating the existence of a biochemical equilibrium similar to that previously obtained for Galician (north-west Spain) forest climax soils.

Keywords    grasslands; soil biochemical equilibrium; soil biochemical properties; soil enzymes; soil organic matter

A07008; Online publication date 8 November 2007; Received 26 January 2007; accepted 4 July 2007

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2007, Vol. 50: 537–548
0028–8233/07/5004–0537 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2007

PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality (899K) | screen-quality (509K)

---

This year's abstracts | Journal home page | All abstracts | Publishing home page