Losses of Soil Organic Carbon in Tea Plantations under Varied Reclamation Methods

Effect of erosion on the loss of organic carbon in the soil of tea plantations was studied on runoff plots under different methods of reclamation. It was found that the sediment-bonded organic carbon constituted the major form of the loss, accounting for 87.4%, and up to 98.6%, of the total. Whereas, the runoff loss was merely 1.4%～12.6% of the total. The method of reclamation by landings herbage inter-planting resulted in the lowest annual organic carbon loss, which was 70.1%～70.7% lower than by longitudinal clean tillage, 42.1%～57.0% lower than by longitudinal herbage inter-planting, and 14.2%～17.8% lower than by landings clean tillage. Thus, it was recommended that the landings herbage inter-planting method be applied for the reduction of organic carbon loss in soil at tea plantations.