Date Received: 31-08-2020 / Date Accepted: 07-10-2020
The study was conducted to evaluate seasonal variation in soil quality in My Phuoc melaleuca forest, Soc Trang province through the indicators of pH, conductivity (EC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), organic matter (OM), total iron (Fet), aluminum exchange (Al) using multivariate statistics. Cluster Analysis (CA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Discriminant Analysis (DA) were used to assess seasonal variation in soil quality. The findings indicated that soil environment in the study area had very low pH, medium Al, EC and high Fet, low TP, medium OM, and high TN. All soil quality indicators (except EC, Al) tended to increase in the rainy season. CA results showed that 28 locations were divided into 6 groups in dry season and 4 groups in rainy season indicating highly seasonally varied in soil quality. PCA results presented that Fet, Al, OM significantly influenced on soil quality in the dry season, while pH, TN, and TP significant affected on soil quality in the rainy season. DA indicated that EC, OM and TP were the main variables causing the difference in soil quality between the two seasons. The results of the study provided important information serving the management of soil environment quality in My Phuoc Melaleuca Forest Reserve.
