Biochar amendment of fluvio‐glacial temperate sandy subsoil: Effects on maize water uptake, growth and physiology

Ahmed, Fauziatu; Arthur, Emmanuel; Plauborg, Finn; Razzaghi, Fatemeh; Kørup, Kirsten; Andersen, Mathias Neumann

doi:10.1111/jac.12252

Cited by 37 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Sandy soils are characterised by low water holding capacity and excessive drainage below the root zone (Andry et al, 2009) and therefore considered marginal for agricultural production especially in dry areas. Nevertheless, many hundred thousands of hectares of this soil type formed by glacial river deposits is under cultivation in north-western Europe (Andersen and Aremu, 1991;Andersen et al, 1992;Ahmed et al, 2018). In coarse sand, lack of soil structure, low moisture content, greater bulk density and low organic content tend to increase the mechanical impedance to root growth (Bruun et al, 2012;Wernerehl and Givnish, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Rootsnap Sensor Reveals the Ameliorating Effect of Biochar on In Situ Root Growth Dynamics of Maize in Sandy Soil

et al. 2020

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We investigated if subsoil constraints to root development imposed by coarse sand were affected by drought and biochar application over two seasons. Biochar was applied to the subsoil of pots at 20-50 cm depth in concentrations of 0%, 1%, 2%, and 3% (B0, B1, B2, and B3). Maize was grown in the same pots 1 week and 12 months after biochar application. The maize plants were fully irrigated until flowering; thereafter, half of them were subjected to drought. A new method for observing root growth dynamics and root length density in situ, the Rootsnap sensor system, was developed. The sensors were installed at 50 cm depth just below the layer of biochar-amended subsoil. Using data from a smaller experiment with grass, the calculated root length densities from the sensors were compared with data from scanning of manually washed roots. In year 2, we investigated the effect of aged biochar on root growth using only the root wash and scanning method. The Rootsnap sensor revealed that the arrival time of the first root in B3 at the 50 cm depth averaged 47 days after planting, which was significantly earlier than in B0, by 9 days. The tendency for faster root proliferation in biochar-amended subsoil indicates that biochar reduced subsoil mechanical impedance and allowed roots to gain faster access to deep soil layers. A linear regression comparing root length density obtained from the Rootsnap sensor with the scanning method yielded an r 2 of 0.50. Our analysis using the scanning method further showed that under drought stress, maize roots responded with reduced root diameter and increased root length density at 50-70 cm depth in the first and second year, respectively. The trend under full irrigation was less clear, with significant decrease in root length density for B1 and B2 in year 2. Overall, reduction in subsoil mechanical impedance observed as early arrival of roots to the subsoil may prevent or delay the onset of drought and reduce leaching of nutrients in biocharamended soil with positive implications for agricultural productivity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Rootsnap Sensor Reveals the Ameliorating Effect of Biochar on In Situ Root Growth Dynamics of Maize in Sandy Soil

et al. 2020

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“…The biochar induced benefits include reduced nutrient leaching from amended soils (Laird et al, 2010;Bakshi et al, 2014), increased soil nutrient availability (Xu et al, 2015), crop nutrient uptake (Madiba et al, 2016), and fertilizer use efficiency (Wang et al, 2017). Furthermore, increased soil water retention (Bruun et al, 2014) has been shown to improve plant productivity (Xu et al, 2015;Ahmed et al, 2018). However, neutral or negative effects of biochar addition have also been reported (Deenik et al, 2010;Reibe et al, 2015;Kolton et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, neutral or negative effects of biochar addition have also been reported (Deenik et al, 2010;Reibe et al, 2015;Kolton et al, 2017). The results vary for different experimental conditions (Spokas et al, 2012), such as biochar type (Crane-Droesch et al, 2013) and biochar application rate (Liu et al, 2013) as well as crop species (Ahmed et al, 2018). Negative effects on potato growth have been related to reduced uptake of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) as well as the release of ethylene from fresh biochar, which, however, is considered to be a short lived and transient effect (Spokas et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nutrient uptake and growth of potato: Arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis interacts with quality and quantity of amended biochars

Yang

Ravnskov

Andersen

2020

J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci.

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Aims: The aim of this study was to explore interactive effects between quality (types) and quantity (application rates) of biochar as well as of arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) symbiosis on the growth of potato plants. Methods: A low P sandy loam soil was amended with 0%, 1.5%, or 2.5% (w/w) of either of 4 types of biochar, which were produced from wheat straw pellets (WSP) or miscanthus straw pellets (MSP) pyrolyzed at temperatures of either 550°C or 700°C. Potato plants grown in pots containing the soils or soil biochar mixture were inoculated with or without AM fungus (AMF), Rhizophagus irregularis. The experiment was carried out under fully irrigated semi‐field conditions and plants were harvested 101 days after planting. Results: Application of high temperature biochar decreased growth, biomass and tuber yield of potato plants, while the low temperature biochar had a similar effect on yield as plants grown without biochar amendment. Total biomass of potato plants were decreased with the increasing rate of biochar. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus inoculation stimulated the growth of potato plants in all organs, increased tuber biomass significantly in 1.5% MSP700 amended plants, and to a lesser degree for WSP700, MSP550, and WSP550. In addition, plant biomass gain was linearly related to N, P, and K uptake, the ratio of P to N in the leaf of plants indicated that all treatments were mainly P‐limited. A multiple linear regression using P uptake and biochar rate as independent variables explained 91% of the variation in total biomass. The single effect of AMF inoculation, type and rate of biochar affected plant N, P and K uptake similarly. While AMF inoculation significantly increased P uptake in potato plants grown in soil with WSP700 or MSP700 despite of the rate of biochar. In general, application of biochar significantly increased AMF root colonization of potato plants. Conclusions: The application of MSP550 at 1.5% combined with AMF stimulated growth of potato the most. Furthermore, the results indicated that the interactive effect of AMF inoculation, biochar type and application rate on potato growth to a large extent could be explained by effects on plant nutrient uptake.

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“…It has high carbon content, rich pore structure, large specific surface area, various organic functional groups contained (or absorbed) on the surface, strong ion exchange adsorption capacity and stable physicochemical properties. Biochar addition to sandy soil was considered to improve a range of soil physical and hydraulic properties including soil bulk density (Githinji, 2014;Suliman et al, 2017;Ahmed et al, 2018), soil hydraulic conductivity (Uzoma et al, 2011;Ibrahim et al, 2013;Barnes et al, 2014;Jacka et al, 2018), water infiltration rate (Ibrahim et al, 2013;Githinji, 2014), soil hydrophobicity (Ibrahim et al, 2013), soil water holding capacity (Dugan et al, 2010;Karhu et al, 2011;Devereux et al, 2012;Suliman et al, 2017;Al-Wabel et al, 2018), and soil available water (Baronti et al, 2014;Bruun et al, 2014;Glab et al, 2016;Hansen et al, 2016), as well as crop properties including crop production ( Faloye et al, 2017;She et al, 2018), water use efficiency (Xiao et al, 2018) and crop drought resistance (Poormansour and Razzaghi, 2018). The application of biochar improves the physical and hydraulic characteristics of sandy soil (Karhu et al, 2011) and has direct effects on soil water movement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of biochar on water movement characteristics in sandy soil under drip irrigation

Tang

et al. 2019

J. Arid Land

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Biochar addition can improve the physical and hydraulic characteristics of sandy soil. This study investigated the effects of biochar on water holding capacity and water movement in sandy soil under drip irrigation. By indoor simulation experiments, the effects of biochar application at five levels (0%, 1%, 2%, 4% and 6%) on the soil water retention curve, infiltration characteristics of drip irrigation and water distribution were tested and analyzed. The results showed that biochar addition rate was positively correlated with water holding capacity of sandy soil and soil available water. Within the same infiltration time, with an increasing amount of added biochar, the diffusion distance of the horizontal wetting front (HWF) tended to decrease, while the infiltration distance of vertical wetting front (VWF) initially declined and then rose. The features of wetted bodies changed from "broad-shallow" to "narrow-deep" type. The relationship between the transport distances of HWF and VWF and the infiltration time was described by a power function. At the same distance from the point source, the larger the amount of added biochar, the higher the soil water content. Biochar had a great influence on the water content of the layer with biochar (0-200 mm) and had some effects at 200-250 mm without biochar; but it had less influence on the soil water content deeper than 250 mm. For the application rate of biochar of 4%, most water was retained within 0-250 mm soil layer. However, when biochar application amount was high (6%), it would be helpful for water infiltration. During the improvement of sandy soil, biochar application rate of 4% in the plow layer had the best effect.

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Biochar amendment of fluvio‐glacial temperate sandy subsoil: Effects on maize water uptake, growth and physiology

Cited by 37 publications

References 48 publications

New Rootsnap Sensor Reveals the Ameliorating Effect of Biochar on In Situ Root Growth Dynamics of Maize in Sandy Soil

New Rootsnap Sensor Reveals the Ameliorating Effect of Biochar on In Situ Root Growth Dynamics of Maize in Sandy Soil

Nutrient uptake and growth of potato: Arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis interacts with quality and quantity of amended biochars

Effects of biochar on water movement characteristics in sandy soil under drip irrigation

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