Long-term cultivation effects on soil physicochemical properties in Dong Thap Province, Vietnamese Mekong Delta
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In many agricultural regions, long-term intensive cultivation has raised concerns about soil degradation and declining soil fertility, particularly in tropical lowland areas. This situation highlights the need to understand better how continuous cropping affects soil properties over time. This study aimed to investigate how prolonged continuous cultivation influences the physical and chemical characteristics of agricultural soils. Effect of 4 different long-term cultivation (<5, 5 - 10, 11 - 15, and over 15 years) on soil physico-chemical properties of farmers’ two rice - one cash crop in Dong Thap province. A total of 66 soil samples at two depths (0 - 20 and 20 - 50 cm) were randomly collected from the intensive crop area. Data showed that bulk density was higher after over 10 years of cultivation, and the soil texture of Silty Clay was observed across all crops. The results showed that the chemical properties of the soils were characterised by the low to rather low pH values (4.0 - 6.0) of the topsoil and tended to decrease gradually with depth and intensive cultivation. Unimpacted electrical conductivity (EC) in rice-crop field was recorded, while total N, P, K, soil organic carbon and CEC tended to...
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© 2026 The authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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