| Abstrakt: |
Soil cation exchange capacity (CEC) measures the capability of soils to hold and release nutrients. It is an important measure for classifying soils and planning nutrient additions, but it is not included in routine soil tests offered to farmers. In this study, we compared CEC measured with standard laboratory practices (neutral ammonium acetate [AAc]) with CEC estimated from agronomic soil test data (Mehlich‐3 and AAc). We applied previously published estimation methods to a dataset of 48 soil samples. Based on the results, traditional methods underestimate measured cation exchange capacity by 36% for Mehlich‐3 and 24% for AAc. The estimation can be improved by including aluminium (12% overestimate) or by fitting a localized pedotransfer function (3% underestimate), which offers a possibility for informing land managers about their soil nutrient holding capacity without adding costs to the analysis. Core Ideas: Traditional CEC estimation methods are only accurate for some extraction methods.Measurements of pH, Ca, Mg, K, Na, Al, and Fe concentrations can be used to model CEC accurately.Including CEC with routine soil tests informs managers of a field's nutrient holding capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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