Effects of Exploitation of Tea Gardens on Soil Fertility in Hilly Area

This study was aim to investigate the effects of exploitation of tea gardens on soil fertility in hilly area and to improve the management of hill tea garden.We selected the forest land and three different ages of tea gardens(1,5 and 8 year).The distribution characters of three soil nutrients(alkali solution nitrogen,rapidly-available potassium,effective phosphorus)and its influencing factors were analyzed.The results showed that conversion of forest to tea garden could lead to a decreasing of soil organic carbon and nitrogen contents at 12.8% ~28.2% and 8.9% ~22.3%,respectively.The contents of three key nutrients were also decreased with the increasing of tea garden age.Furthermore,there was a negative correlation between the soil organic matter,three nutrients and plantation ages.These results indicated that the forest converted to tea garden could lead to a greatly impact on soil fertility.The explanation mainly due to reduce in the surface coverage that induce a serious soil erosion,nutrient loss and played a significant influence on ecological environment.Therefore,it was unfit for plant tea in state-owned forest farm because of their clearly impact on construction of ecological civilization.