Nitrification potentials of Chinese tea orchard soils and their adjacentwasteland and forest soils

To investigate the nitrifying activities of di erent soil types, soil samples collected from 8-, 50- and 90-year old tea orchards, theadjacent wasteland, and 90-year old forest were measured for their nitrification potentials using the conventional soil incubation and theliquid incubation method. Among di erent soil types, the nitrification potential of soil in tea orchards was higher than that of wastelandand forest soils. The slurry shaken liquid incubation method was confirmed to be more accurate and have reliable results than thesoil incubation. Interestingly, experimental result revealed that the generally applied pH value of 7.2 for the liquid media was not theoptimal pH for these acid soils with a strong bu er capacity. This suggested that tea orchard soils may have nitrifiers requiring pHneutralcondition for the best activity. Our data also showed that treatment with the commonly used nitrogen fertilizer urea significantlyimproved nitrification potential of the soils; such enhancement e ect was stronger on all of three tea orchard soils than on wastelandand forest soils, and also stronger on the younger (8- and 50-year old) tea orchard soils than on the older one (90-year old).