A new grading system for plant-available potassium using exhaustive cropping techniques combined with chemical analyses of soils

A new grading system for plant-available potassium (K) in soils based on K release rate from soils and plant growth indices was established. In the study, fourteen different agricultural soils from the southern subtropical to the northern temperate zones in China were analyzed by both chemical extraction methods and exhaustive cropping techniques. Based on the change trends in plant growth indices, relative biomass yields of 70% and 50%, K-deficient coefficients of 35 and 22 under conventional exhaustive experiments, and tissue K concentrations of 40 g kg(−1) and 15 g kg(−1) under intensive exhaustive experiments were obtained as critical values that represent different change trends. In addition, the extraction method using 0.2 mol L(−1) sodium tetraphenylboron (NaTPB) suggested soil K release rates of 12 mg kg(−1) min(−1) and 0.4 mg kg(−1) min(−1) as turning points that illustrated three different release trends. Thus, plant-available K in soils was classified into three categories: high available K, medium available K and low available K, and grading criteria and measurement methods were also proposed. This work has increased our understanding of soil K bioavailability and has direct application in terms of routine assessment of agriculture soils.