Soils of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The aim of this book is to bring together and summarise our present knowledge of the soils of Papua New Guinea. Although much of it is based on data collected during CSIRO's land resource surveys, the book also attempts to incorporate the widely scattered and relatively inaccessible information gathered by other researchers. The US Department of Agriculture's soil taxonomy classification has been used, since it is now internationally widely accepted and makes the data accessible to scientists working in other parts of the tropics. Eight orders, twenty-six suborders and sixty-one great soil groups have been identified in Papua New Guinea. Following an introductory section on the environment and a discussion on soil classification and mapping, the next chapters describe the soils at great soil group level according to the eight orders (Entisols, Elistosols, Inceptisols, Vertisols, Mollisols, Alfisols, Ultisols, and Oxisols). For each great group separate sections on morphology, genesis, occurrence, association, fertility, and land use are given. The second part of the book discusses soil related subjects, attempting as far as possible to synthesise the available information. A review of the various land inventory methods, including land system surveys is given, and soil erosion and conservation are discussed, as is the possible application of the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) to Papua New Guinea conditions. Type, depth, rate and the assessment of the degree of weathering are dealt with, together with some examples from Papua New Guinea. The author examines the content of primary nutrients (N, P and K) in some typical great soil groups and trace element deficiencies in tree crops. A review of soil microrelief features at various locations in Papua New Guinea is given, while the last chapter briefly examines traditional food crop agriculture, especially in relation to soil properties and crop yield declines under cultivation.