Abstract

Soil quality is a function of inherent and dynamic properties of soil which determines the sustainability of crop and animal production. Based on this fact, the study was aimed to investigate the effects of land use systems and management practices on soil physical and chemical quality indicators of Vertisol at Pawe district, Northwestern Ethiopia. The result revealed that most of the soil physical and chemical properties were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) affected by the land uses and respective management practices. The land uses and respective management practices were selected as the cultivated homestead land (CHL), cultivated research farm (CRF), cultivated fertilized land (CFL) and cultivated unfertilized land( CUL) and native vegetation land (NVL) as a control. The cultivated land with application of farm yard manure (FYM) at the homestead area had higher soil porosity, aggregate size, organic matter (OM), total and mineral nitrogen, available phosphorus (AvP), cation exchange capacity (CEC), exchangeable cations, and micronutrients than the native vegetation land. On the other hand, most of these soil physical and chemical properties found to be declined in the research farm, fertilized and unfertilized cultivated lands. Therefore, integrated use of chemical fertilizer, farmyard manure application and reduced tillage are important soil management practices for sustainable agricultural use of soil in the study area.

Key words: Soil quality, vertisol, land use, cultivated land, management practices.