The rampant bayberry decline disease has been regarded as related to soil with the long-term plantation bayberry. These parameters, hydrogen, aluminum, other alkali cations, and plant-related nutrients, were measured from the soil around diseased tree roots 10, 20, and 30 years old. The pH significantly declined in topsoil with increasing tree age and rose with increasing depth of the soil layer with an age of 10, 20, and 30 years. The concentration of exchangeable aluminum has risen significantly with the increase of the tree ages in the top soil layer and also in 0 to 40 cm soils layer with ten-year-old trees. In the top soil layer with a depth of 0 to 10 cm, the cation concentrations of Ca2+, Mg2+, and K+ has fallen significantly with the increase of tree ages. A higher concentration of exchangeable aluminum was observed in the soil with trees more seriously affected by the disease and was accompanied with lower concentrations of Ca2+, Mg2+, and K+. The correlation analysis showed that the soil pH is significantly positively related to the concentration of exchangeable Ca2+, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus and negatively to exchangeable aluminum. These findings provided a new insight to mitigate the disease by regulating the soil parameters.
Keywords: aluminum toxicity; bayberry decline disease; soil acidification; soil parameters.