Tropics
Online ISSN : 1882-5729
Print ISSN : 0917-415X
ISSN-L : 0917-415X
Ecological characteristics of home gardens in northern Thailand
Thanakorn LATTIRASUVANSota TANAKAKenji NAKAMOTODaisuke HATTORIKatsutoshi SAKURAI
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2010 Volume 18 Issue 4 Pages 171-184

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Abstract

Ecological characteristics such as planted crops and soil fertility were studied in 60 home gardens in Phrae province, northern Thailand. The studied home gardens were 2 to 70 years old, and were mostly 400 to 600 m2, which is small compared with those reported in previous studies of tropical and subtropical regions. In all, 275 species were recorded, of which 45% were tree species, followed by shrub (25%), herb (18%), and climber species (12%). The most common use of the plants was as food (27%), followed by ornamentation (24%), medicine (15%), building materials (14%), and fruit (12%). In many gardens, the numbers of species were 0.05 to 0.1 per square meter and 25 to 40 per garden. The Simpson and the Shannon-Wiener indices respectively exceeded 0.9 and 3.0. Cocos nucifera dominated the higher stratum of 10 m or higher. Although basal areas of tree species were typically less than 20 cm2 m-2, 12 home gardens showed basal areas exceeding this value. Actually, 437 trees (64 species) had a larger DBH than 20 cm, sometimes larger than 50 cm. Most these trees comprised only four species: C. nucifera (21%), Tamarindus indica (15%), Artocarpus heterophyllus (11%), and Mangifera indica (10%). Results reveal that species diversity of the home garden in this study was higher, especially in terms of unit area, than species diversity in other tropical regions, and higher than reported values of a mixed deciduous forest and teak plantations in northern Thailand. Most soils in the home gardens showed sandy clay loam to light clay texture. Both surface and subsurface soils were less acidic and rich in nutrient contents, irrespective of the fertilizer type (chemical, organic, and no fertilizer application). The cation exchange sites of the soils were saturated with exchangeable bases, predominated by Ca. Consequently, the levels of base saturation were greater than 100%. In comparison with other land uses in northern Thailand, the home gardens had characteristically high contents of nutrients throughout the soil profile.

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© 2010 The Japan Society of Tropical Ecology
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