Cargando…

Biochar Improves Soil Aggregate Stability and Water Availability in a Mollisol after Three Years of Field Application

A field experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of organic amendments on soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, bulk density, aggregate stability, field capacity and plant available water in a representative Chinese Mollisol. Four treatments were as follows: no fertilization (CK), applicatio...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ma, Ningning, Zhang, Lili, Zhang, Yulan, Yang, Lijie, Yu, Chunxiao, Yin, Guanghua, Doane, Timothy A., Wu, Zhijie, Zhu, Ping, Ma, Xingzhu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4871556/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27191160
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154091
Descripción
Sumario:A field experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of organic amendments on soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, bulk density, aggregate stability, field capacity and plant available water in a representative Chinese Mollisol. Four treatments were as follows: no fertilization (CK), application of inorganic fertilizer (NPK), combined application of inorganic fertilizer with maize straw (NPK+S) and addition of biochar with inorganic fertilizer (NPK+B). Our results showed that after three consecutive years of application, the values of soil bulk density were significantly lower in both organic amendment-treated plots than in unamended (CK and NPK) plots. Compared with NPK, NPK+B more effectively increased the contents of soil organic carbon, improved the relative proportion of soil macro-aggregates and mean weight diameter, and enhanced field capacity as well as plant available water. Organic amendments had no obvious effect on soil C/N ratio or wilting coefficient. The results of linear regression indicated that the improvement in soil water retention could be attributed to the increases in soil organic carbon and aggregate stability.