Classification of organic soils of Malaysia
2004
Paramananthan, S. | Meling, L.
Organic soils are estimated to occupy about 2.6 million ha in Malaysia. These estimates, however, exclude soils mapped as organic clays and mucks, which in some cases qualify as organic soils, and the organic soils which occur at high altitude. One of the problems faced in the mapping, classification and estimation of the extent of organic soils in Malaysia is the different definitions used to define organic soils in Penisular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. Over the last few years, interest in organic soils of Malaysia has increased espceciall in Sabah and Sarawak after the successful economic cultivation of oil palms on these soils in Penisular Malaysia using special management techniques. However, efforts to transfer this agrotechnology from Penisular Malaysia to Sabah and Sarawak are hampered by the differences in the definitions, classification and mapping of organic soils in the tree regions. The objective of this paper is to review the existing definition and classification of organic soils in Malaysia. The paper proposes completely revised definitions and criteria for the classification of the organic soils of Malaysia. This paper outlines completely revised definitions and classifications of organic soils of Malaysia as proposed by Paramananthan (1998). This new unified classification while based on the structure of Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff 1975) has been modified to suit Malaysian conditions so as not to upset existing soil series/families already in the use in Malaysia. The criteria used in this classification include : soil temperature regime, thickness of organic deposits, nature of the dominant material in the subsurface tier, nature of the underlying substratum, reaction class, origin of the organic deposits, ash content and the presence/absence of wood in the profile.
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