COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION OF SOIL QUALITY AT DIFFERENT STAND DENSITIES OF DENDROCALAMUS MINOR VAR. AMOENUS PLANTATIONS

Soil is considered as the fundamental media to provide nutrients to plants for their growth and development. Nevertheless, soil quality is closely related to soil microbes, enzyme activity, soil physicochemical properties, and above-ground biomass. In this study, soil quality evaluation was performed on 17 indicators, including soil physicochemical properties and enzyme activity. For this, the stand density with the highest soil quality score was selected for improving forest productivity and forest management. Stand density and soil layer factors have little effect on physical properties, mainly affecting chemical properties and enzyme activity. Different species have different adaptability to soil nutrients. The stand density of Dendrocalamus minor var. amoenus was positively correlated with total nitrogen, urease, available potassium, and available phosphorus. Nine indicators were screened by principal component analysis to explain soil quality (cumulative proportion of 92.50%). Among them, Stand H1 had the highest soil quality score, and the lower stand density is helpful in alleviating competition pressure on light resources, soil nutrition and so on. It is suggested that the future forest management of Dendrocalamus minor var. amoenus should be controlled in the range of 4300 ramet/hm -2 , which is more conducive to soil quality.