The Cation Exchange Capacity, pH of Soil in Mwogo Marshland, and the Rice Plantation in Huye District -Rwanda

Abstract— Agriculture is a major component of Rwanda’s national economy. In 2017, agriculture contributed 33% to the country’s GDP. About 66.46 % of population, of which 50.9 % are women, depends either directly or indirectly on agriculture for living. The average arable surface area available is about 0.60 ha per household use. This causes overexploitation of available land which is often accompanied by agricultural malpractices with disastrous consequences on land resources and on environment in general. Given the limited availability of arable land for agriculture and the constantly growing food requirements of the population, ensuring food security poses a major challenge. This present study aimed at investigating the cation exchange capacity and pH of soil of Mwogo Marshaland in order to resolving the problem of soil fertility of Mwogo marshland by looking the method for increasing its fertility and then the problem of low rice production. By using soil Auger, samples were taken randomly in the field where each sample of soil was used in laboratory to determine both pH and Cation Exchange Capacity, in each blocks namely Block du Nord and Block du Sud. During this study the laboratory results and laboratory analysis has shown that marshland soil is very acidity with pHkcl is 4.37, Ph water with a weak cation exchange capacity. These findings support the previous studies showing that the soils with those properties need particular management; like liming, addition of organic matter, and so on, in order to adjust its chemical properties