COMPARISON OF SOIL COMPOSITION BETWEEN FARMLANDS AND CONSERVED AREA

Abstract

Thai farmers usually have low formal education and lack of knowledge on soil
quality improvement and proper use of fertilizers. After a few years of farming, they try to
trespass in conserved forest areas because of soil deterioration in their own limited expanses
of farmland and they believe that soils in the conserved area are more fertile than soils in their
own farms. Consequently, most of them are arrested, creating individual and family problems.
This project will compare the physical and chemical properties of soils from farmlands and soils
from the conserved area. The results showed that soil nutrients from both farmlands and soils
from the conserved area were not significantly different in nearly all parameters of analysis
except soils from the conserved area have more organic matters and nitrogen content.
However, both soils from farmlands and conserved area were sandy loam which has low water
content and low cation exchange capacity. The analysis data were informed to the farmers and
suggested them to improve their farmlands using appropriate organic matters and suitable
plants have to be chosen to match the sandy loam soil in order to get more productivity. Water
supply management also has to be improved. However, mixed farming is another good planting
method. Some kinds of plants can fix nitrogen in soil such as legumes. They can enrich soil
nutrients. The most important issue is that farmers have to be acknowledged that soils in the
conserved areas are not more fertile than soils in their farmlands. Therefore, in the future,
farmers will not trespass conserve areas.