Impact of coffee biochar on soil carbon, microbial biomass and enzymatic activities in Semiarid Entisol cultivated with maize

Abstract

The use of biochar can bring benefits such as long-term carbon sequestration and water use efficiency, being an alternative for semiarid regions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of coffee biochar applied in sandy Entisol on maize growth, and soil chemical, microbial and biochemical attributes. The experimental design was completely randomized, distributed in a 2 x 4 + 1 factorial scheme, two types of wastes coffee ground (MCG) and coffee husks (MCH), four doses (4, 8, 12 and 16 Mg ha -1 ) and control (CONT), without biochar. All treatments received organic fertilization with manure. Coffee biochar applied to sandy soil cultivated with maize, as predicted, increased the total soil C content, mainly coffee husk biochar that increases twice the C content compared to the control. Nutrient and some enzyme activities of soils were improved with increasing coffee biochar doses. Microbial biomass of soils amended with the biochars MCH16 and MCH12 showed an increase of 100 and 116%, respectively. This study demonstrated a clear response of the soil nutrients, microbial community and enzyme activities related to types and doses of biochar. Therefore, the use of coffee biochar is recommended for increasing the quality of sandy soils in the Brazilian semi-arid.

Biochar Production and Characteristics, Its Impacts on Soil Health, Crop Production, and Yield Enhancement: A Review

“…Biochar had no significant effect on microbial proportions, although BC10 and BC30 were significantly lower compared to BC0. According to Filho et al [ 106 ], the type, amount, and interaction of biochar has a significant impact on microbial biomass carbon. Since coffee biochar contains unstable organic carbon and has pores that can store large amounts of air and oxygen more quickly, which are crucial for the utilization and growth of microorganisms, its application to sandy soils increases the rate of microbial biomass growth and carbon content [ 107 ].…”

Perspectives for Biochar as a vehicle for inoculation of phosphate solubilizing bacteria: a review

“…Recent studies suggest that the interaction of biochar in the soil can also influence the availability of P, due to changes in pH, in enzymatic efficiency, in the formation of organo-mineral complexes, which can increase the solubility of P through changes induced in the soil microbial community (Du et al, 2019;Li et al, 2020;Shi et al, 2020). Given these advantages for the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the soil (Butnan et al, 2015), biochar emerges as a promising and ecologically favorable alternative for enhancing yields of agricultural crops (Butnan et al, 2015;Martins Filho, 2020).…”

Coffee industry waste-derived biochar: characterization and agricultural use evaluation according to Brazilian legislation

“…Biochar can be employed in agriculture as fertilizers (Kamau et al 2019), mixed with mineral (NPK) fertilizers (Magalhães et al 2018), used as soil conditioners (Silva et al 2018), and employed as a substrate for growing plants (Dispenza et al 2016). Martins Filho et al (2020) and Silva et al (2021) also demonstrated the impact of coffee waste biochar on soil attributes, which provided an increase in nutrients and improved biological activity. Beyond these agricultural uses, important environmental applications have been shown for biochar, including increasing carbon stocks in soils, mitigating the greenhouse effect (Liu et al 2019), and remediating environments contaminated by heavy metals (Chwastowski et al 2020;Manzano et al 2020).…”