Abstract:
Available sulphur was determined on 5077 soils from the tea growing areas of Dooars (North Bengal), received for routine soil testing between 2000-2003. Over 43% of the soils had more than the critical limit of 40 ppm available sulphur. A distinct geographical trend in sulphur availability was observed, with the four western sub-districts showing a greater frequency of
high available sulphur than the three eastern sub-districts. As expected, increased organic carbon in the soils could be correlated by a quadratic equation to the available sulphur status. Three sub-districts, Chulsa, Binnaguri and Dalgaon did not show a high correlation between organic carbon and available sulphur. Surprisingly, a negative linear relationship could be observed between soil pH and available sulphur, in all but the Jainti sub-district. This may be compounded by a negative correlation between soil pH and organic carbon status, in all but the Binnaguri, Kalchini and Jainti sub-districts.
