Assessment of soil fertility status of Vertisols under selected three land uses in Girar Jarso District of North Shoa Zone, Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia

Environmental Systems Research

Table 4 Main effects of land uses and soil depths on some chemical properties of soils of the study area

	pH-H₂O	EC (dS m⁻¹)	OC (%)	Total N (%)	C:N	AP (mg kg⁻¹)	EA (cmol(+) kg⁻¹)
Land use
CUL	4.84^b	0.07^c	1.04^c	0.09^b	12.16	20.07^a	2.21^a
GRL	5.88^a	0.16^a	2.24^a	0.20^a	11.63	12.98^c	1.27^b
NFL	5.79^a	0.11^b	2.15^b	0.20^a	10.79	15.42^b	1.33^b
LSD (0.05)	0.15	0.02	0.05	0.02	NS	1.23	0.12
SEM (±)	0.05	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.80	0.39	0.04
Soil depth
0–20 cm	5.47	0.12^a	2.48^a	0.21^a	11.96	19.49^a	1.87^a
20–40 cm	5.53	0.10^b	1.13^b	0.11^b	11.09	12.81^b	1.41^b
LSD (0.05)	NS	0.01	0.04	0.02	NS	1.00	0.10
SEM (±)	0.04	0.00	0.01	0.01	0.77	0.32	0.03
CV (%)	2.13	10.38	2.04	11.28	8.17	5.87	6.11

Means within a column for the same factor followed by the same letters in superscripts are not significantly different from each other at P = 0.05
LSD least significant difference, NS not significant, SEM standard error of mean, CV coefficient of variation, EC electrical conductivity, OC organic carbon, C:N carbon to nitrogen ratio, AP available phosphorus, EA exchangeable acidity, EAl exchangeable aluminum, CUL cultivated land, GRL grazing land, NFL Natural forest land