Impact of Long-Term Forest Enrichment Planting on the Biological Status of Soil in a Deforested Dipterocarp Forest in Perak, Malaysia

Table 1

Selected soil physicochemical properties of enrichment planting (F1) and secondary forest (F2) plots.

Parameters	F1	F2	P value
	0–15 cm depth
Organic matter (%)	16.99 ± 0.84^a	12.12 ± 0.35^b	0.001947
Organic carbon (%)	9.86 ± 0.49^a	7.03 ± 0.47^b	0.001947
Total nitrogen (%)	1.55 ± 0.09^a	1.11 ± 0.09^b	0.006318
pH-H2O	4.36 ± 0.11^a	4.19 ± 0.05^a	0.348473
Bulk density (g cm^−3)	1.16 ± 0.01^a	1.24 ± 0.02^b	0.007088
Moisture content (%)	26.33 ± 0.61^a	20.50 ± 1.91^b	0.015656
	15–30 cm depth
Organic matter (%)	14.29 ± 0.35^a	11.27 ± 0.78^b	0.005467
Organic carbon (%)	8.29 ± 0.20^a	6.54 ± 0.45^b	0.005466
Total nitrogen (%)	0.81 ± 0.05^a	0.77 ± 0.10^a	0.713792
pH-H2O	4.42 ± 0.10^a	4.23 ± 0.08^b	0.059146
Bulk density (g cm^−3)	1.22 ± 0.01^a	1.26 ± 0.02^a	0.153677
Moisture content (%)	23.33 ± 0.49^a	19.17 ± 2.60^a	0.146512

Note: different letters each row indicate significant differences between the means of soil properties at both depths at enrichment planting (F1) or secondary forest (F2) plots using the Student’s t-test (𝑃<0.05).