1995 Volume 40 Issue 4 Pages 362-372
Some soil physical and chemical properties of five well-developed natural kudzu (Pueraria lobata OHWI) stands, and two Robinia pseudoacacia forests and one Myrica rubra forest for comparative purposes were investigated as a part of a study on the characteristics of the "plant community-soil system" at the early stage of regenerated vegetation in places where the secondary forest in the lucidophyllous forest zone was destroyed by fire. This study was conducted in Motoyama-cho, Higashinada-ku Kobe ; at the southernmost part of the Paleozoic strata in the Mt. Rokko disrict. Kudzu stands in the study area have generally developed in places where the degree of soil compaction was high and the other plant species are hard to establish : spur ends, the bottom of gorges and steep slopes. The kudzu stands studied, like the R. pseudoacacia forests distributed widely in the study area, were established on the eroded soil of brown forest soil type resulting from the repeated destruction of "plant community-soil system". The kudzu stands had a total above-ground dry weight of 526.8 g m^<-2> at Plot 3. The Kudzu stands was inferior in the physical and chemical properties of the in 0-30 cm depth soil (soil in absorbing root zone) and had a similar percentage of soil water content (30-40%) to the adjacent R. pseudoacacia forest and M. rubra forest. From the results of this study, it is assumed that kudzu stands established in the sites with a higher degree of soil compaction on steep slopes maintain nearpure stand status in a "plant community-soil system" for a relativeIy long time.
