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

Autor: Ningning Ma, Lili Zhang, Yulan Zhang, Lijie Yang, Chunxiao Yu, Guanghua Yin, Timothy A Doane, Zhijie Wu, Ping Zhu, Xingzhu Ma
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2016
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 11, Iss 5, p e0154091 (2016)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154091
Popis: 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.
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