Soil hydrolase activities and kinetic properties as affected by wheat cropping systems of Northeastern China

Agricultural practices that reduce soil degradation and improve agriculture sustainability are important particularly for dry hilly land of Chaoyang County in the Liaoning Province, North-east China, where cinnamon soils are widely distributed and mainly for wheat production. The impacts of 10-year cropping systems (wheat-cabbage sequential cropping, wheat-corn intercrop, wheat-sunflower rotation, wheat-soybean rotation) on soil enzyme properties of surface-soil (0-20 cm) were studied. Total carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur, and nine soil hydrolases related to nutrient availabilities (β-galactosidase, α-galactosidase, β-glucosidase, α-glucosidase, urease, protease, phosphomonoesterase, phosphodiesterase, arylsulphatase) and five enzymes kinetic characters were examined. Wheat-corn intercrop systems had higher total C, total N, total P and total S concentrations than wheat-soybean and wheat-sunflower rotation systems. Most test enzyme activities (α-galactosidase, β-galactosidase, α-glucosidase, β-glucosidase, urease, protease, phosphomonoesterase and arylsulphatase) showed the highest activities under wheat-corn intercropping system. Urease, protease and phosphodiesterase activities of wheat-cabbage sequential cropping system were significantly higher than two rotation systems. The maximum reaction rates of enzymes (Vmax) were higher than apparent enzyme activity, which suggests larger potential activity of enzymes, while not all kinetic parameters were adaptive as soil quality indicators in dry hilly cinnamon soil.