Effect of Consecutive Application of Phosphorus-Enriched Biochar with Different Levels of P on Growth Performance of Maize for Two Successive Growing Seasons

Abstract

Sustainable management of phosphorus (P) is one of the burning issues in agriculture because the reported P losses, when applied in the form of mineral fertilizer, give rise to another issue of water pollution as P is considered one of the limiting nutrients for eutrophication and so results in costly water treatments. In the present study, the enrichment of biochar with mineral P fertilizer was supposed to reduce such losses from the soil. Additionally, P can also be recycled through this technique at the same time as biochar is derived from biomass. Biochar was prepared using wheat straw followed by its enrichment with di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) at the ratio of 1:1 on a w/w basis. The first pot trial for spring maize (cv. Neelam) was conducted using phosphorus-enriched biochar (PEB) at 0% and 1% with different levels of recommended P (0%, 25%, 50%, and 100%). The treatments were arranged factorially under a complete randomized design (CRD) with three replications. After harvesting the spring maize, pots were kept undisturbed, and a second pot trial was conducted for autumn maize in the same pots to assess the residual impact of 1% PEB. In the second pot trial, only inorganic P was applied to respective treatments because the pots contained 1% PEB supplied to spring maize. The results revealed that the application of 1% PEB at P level 50% significantly increased all the recorded plant traits (growth, yield, and physiological and chemical parameters) and some selected properties of post-harvest soil (available P, organic matter, and EC) but not soil pH. In terms of yield, 1% PEB at 50% P significantly increased both the number of grains and 100-grain weight by around 30% and 21% in spring and autumn maize, respectively, as compared to 100% P without PEB. It is therefore recommended that P-enriched biochar should be used to reduce the inorganic P fertilizer inputs; however, its application under field conditions should be assessed in future research.

Improving Phosphorus Availability and Wheat Yield in Saline Soil of the Lake Urmia Basin through Enriched Biochar and Microbial Inoculation

“…Lehmann and Joseph [35] suggested that biochar application may decrease the soil pH due to the oxidation of carboxyl groups in the biochar or increase the soil pH due to the dissolution of alkaline minerals. Wali et al [36] found that soil pH was barely affected by the addition of EB with different levels of P. Previous studies have found that biochars produced at higher temperatures are basic due to the loss of acidic functional groups [37,38]. Mobilization of microbial communities and the removal of acidic constituents and carboxylic groups from biochar have been suggested as possible reasons for the reduction of pH associated with EB addition [39].…”

Biochar has positive but distinct impacts on root, shoot, and fruit production in beans, tomatoes, and willows

“…With respect to the aging of the biochar itself, previous studies have shown that positive effects of biochar on soil fertility can either increase over time (Kätterer et al, 2019;Jiang et al, 2022;Wali et al, 2022) or decrease over time (Olszyk et al, 2020). We were not able to identify literature that documented changes in how plants respond to biochar as the plants themselves mature.…”

Machine learning and computational chemistry to improve biochar fertilizers: a review

“…Potassium dihydrogen phosphate solution is a popular chemical used to load biochar with phosphorus via adsorption, which was investigated in the studies by Ahmad et al (2018), Wu et al (2019a), Li et al (2020a), Nardis et al (2022), Mihoub et al (2022), andArwenyo et al (2022). On the other hand, Wali et al (2020), Wali et al (2022), and Suwanree et al ( 2022) used di-ammonium phosphate as the enrichment source. Adsorption is a commonly employed technique to load biochar with phosphorus, and it often involves the use of liquid phosphorus sources.…”