Changes in Soil Fertility Following Prescribed Burning on Coastal Plain Pine Sites

摘要

Soil and forest floor samples were collected from four prescribed burning studies in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains. The surface textures of soils ranged from sands to silt loams and the drainage classes from well to poorly drained. Burning treatments had been in force from 8 to 65 years. Reduction of the forest floor and its chemical constituents was related to frequency of burning; however, a protective organic horizon remained on all soils. Burning was found to have had no deleterious effect on organic matter or nitrogen in surface mineral soil. A comparison of earlier results with present findings suggests that annual winter burning may increase nitrogen in surface mineral soil while annual summer burning appears to reduce the total nitrogen content. Prescribed burning consistently increased the amount of available phosphorus. Fractionation of soil phosphorus indicated that burning resulted in the deposition of no specific form of phosphorus but accelerated the mineralization of cycling of the nutrient.