Abstract            Volume:5  Issue-8  Year-2017         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

Soil health is a vital factor in forest productions that cannot be overlooked if forest goods and services must be supplied sustainably. Forest health of a tropical moist rain forest in Federal University Otuoke was investigated using soil physico –chemical properties. Purposeful and sample within block sampling was used. The site was purposely demarcated into three units of 100m×100m each of virgin forest, secondary forest and agricultural field. Each unit was further divided into 20m×20m each from which three sample plots per unit was randomly chosen for study. Soil cores were collected using a soil auger from a depth of 0-30cm from the three sample sites, and labeled according to forest type. Samples from each forest type were mixed for homogeneity and 1kg of each were sieved to remove stones, sealed in polythene bags and taken to the laboratory for analyses. Chemical analyses were carried out for Acidity, Electrical Conductivity, Soil Organic Carbon, Total Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. Data were analyzed using ANOVA with a follow up Post Hoc Test. Results shows that out of the seven soil parameters investigated, Electrical conductivity has a mean value (423µS/cm), while Soil Organic Carbon has a mean value (4.1%). The secondary forest has the highest mean value of the physico-chemical properties (90) while the Agricultural field has the least (69). Forest stands did not significantly affect soil parameters (P=0.05). Physico-chemical properties were highly significant (P = 0.0001). Post Hoc Test shows that variations among physico-chemical properties were as a result of the variation in the means of individual pairs. Forest stands do not affect soil physico - chemical properties in the study area.

Download this article as