Abstract: The pollution situation and fractionation of nickel in tea garden soils as well as the relationships between nickel fraction and total content of nickel and soil properties were studied by collecting the natural tea garden soils from 13 tea gardens located in main tea areas of China. The results showed that: some of the tea garden soils were polluted with nickel to some extent; the distribution of chemical fractions of nickel in the tea garden soils was residual＞exchangeable＞FeMn oxides＞organic＞carbonate; the contents of the others except for exchangeable increased significantly with increases of the total contents of nickel in the soils; carbonate, FeMn oxides and residual increased significantly with the rising of soil pH, however, the exchangeable decreased but not significantly; only FeMn oxides decreased obviously with the organic content, the others increased or decreased but not significantly; carbonate, organic and residual were all increasing significantly with cation exchangeable capacity increased; all of the fractions increased with the clay content but only residual was significant.

Key words: tea garden soils, nickel fractions, affecting factors