Variability of Soil Organic Carbon stocks under different land uses: A study in an afro-montane landscape in southwestern Uganda

Impact of changes in land use, species and elevation on soil organic carbon and total nitrogen in Ethiopian Central Highlands

“…In our study, carbon stock did not vary significantly with elevation as suggested by other studies in African forests (Zewdu et al, 2004;Twongyirwe et al, 2013). However, Saby et al (2008) found that elevation was a controlling factor on SOC in a French region of pasture and arable land.…”

“…Finally, our results showed that C and N concentrations and stocks under native natural forest and plantation forest in Chilimo were generally higher than those reported in other regions (Beets et al, 2002;Harms et al, 2005;Twongyirwe et al, 2013) and suggest two management strategies for improving soil conditions in the central Highlands.…”

“…The strong confounding effect of soil bulk density may lead to overestimation of soil carbon storage capacity (Murty et al, 2002) and misleading conclusions in assessments of the impact of changes in land use. For example, SOC variation after forest conversion was non-significant using the fixed-depth method (Twongyirwe et al, 2013), due to large site-tosite variation. We argue that accurate C and N stock estimation can only be performed when the bulk density effect is discounted, and that the fixed-mass method is more appropriate.…”

Changes in soil carbon and nitrogen stocks followed the conversion from secondary forest to Chinese fir and Moso bamboo plantations

“…Many of these studies focus on the conversion of native forests to agricultural systems (Gelaw et al, 2014;Lozano-García and Parras-Alcántara, 2013;Twongyirwe et al, 2013) or pastures (Fang et al, 2012;Matos et al, 2010). However, studies on the SOC and N stocks after the conversion of the secondary forest to the Chinese fir and Moso bamboo plantations are still rare, although few observed studies have reported soil fertility , soil labile organic C fractions and aggregate stability after the conversion of native forest to Chinese fir plantations (Yang et al, 2009), and soil respiration after the conversion of the Chinese fir plantations to Moso bamboo plantations (Song et al, 2013).…”

Carbon sequestration potential of East African Highland Banana cultivars (Musa spp. AAA-EAHB) cv. Kibuzi, Nakitembe, Enyeru and Nakinyika in Uganda

“…This is in agreement with previous reports showing that banana plants not only invest carbon into the soil through nodal roots that arise from the corm but also over time during photosynthesis as carbon moves from the vegetative canopy into the soil (Turner, 2003;Hairiah et al, 2010). Results from this study show that EAHB are capable of sequestering higher carbon stocks in the soil compared to the stocks estimated in Eucalyptus dominated woodlots in Eastern Uganda at 55.4 Mgha -1 (Sirike, 2012), tea plantations at 69 ± 10.0Mgha -1 and the natural forest at 68.6 ± 14 Mgha -1 in South Western Uganda (Twongyirwe, 2010;Twongyirwe et al, 2013). However, soil carbon stocks estimated from EAHB plantations were similar to that obtained in Patula pine plantations of Columbia at 87.2 Mgha -1 (Juan et al, 2010).…”