Influence of Fertilization on Microbial Activities, Soil Hydrophobicity and Mineral Nitrogen Leaching

Abstract

This work presents the analysis of the influence of compost and reclamation substrate addition and mineral fertilizers application on leaching of mineral nitrogen, microbial activities, soil hydrophobicity and plant biomass production. To demonstrate the effect of compost, reclamation substrate and mineral nitrogen (Nmin) addition on above parameters, the pot experiment was performed. As a model crop, Deschampsia caespitosa L. was used and cultivated for 63 days in climate chamber. The leaching of Nmjn was measured by application of ion exchange discs, soil hydrophobicity was determined based on the values of saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) and microbial activity was expressed as basal (BR) and substrate induced respiration (SIR). Four variants (V1-V4) with different doses of fertilizers were prepared: V1 - control without addition of fertilizers; V2 - this variant of experiment was prepared as mixture of compost and arable land in ratio 7:3; V3 - 90 g/m2 of mineral fertilizers NPK (in the ratio 1:1:1) were applied there and into V4, dose 30 g of compost were applied. The significant differences (P < 0.05) in the detection of Nmin, values of Ksat and SIR were found. The highest decrease of mineral nitrogen leaching was observed by the simultaneous applications of compost (V4) to arable soil, about 50% in comparison with the variant V4 (application of mineral fertilization) and about 10% in comparison with the control. Variants with addition of compost (V2 and V4) showed higher values than variants without, which were measured at three stages (before application of Nmin - 12 days after establishment of the experiment; after application of Nmin - 34 days; at end of the experiment - 63 days). During the experiment, two types of respiration were measured: BR and SIR. The significant differences in SIR were found between variants with addition of compost and variants without. The SIR (cumulative production of CO2) was higher about 25% in variants V2 and V4 compared to variants V1 and V3. The highest values of Ksat were found in variants with addition of compost. Conversely, the lowest value of Ksat was detected in variant with addition of Nmin. Low values of Ksat indicate an increased level of hydrophobicity.

Long-Term Effects of Biochar-Based Organic Amendments on Soil Microbial Parameters

“…The 16S rDNA AOB value is an indicator of microbial activity in the process of nitrogen mineralization. It has been observed that the addition of organic fertilizers (e.g., compost) positively affects the microbial activity and utilization of nitrogen in contrast to the addition of the NPK fertilizer [104,105]. Among all the treatments, manure amendment with biochar shows the highest log 16S rDNA AOB copies.…”

Assessment of Retention Potential and Soil Organic Carbon Density of Agriculturally used Chernozems, Cambisols and Fluvisols

“…For this reason, soil water retention can be easily influenced by changes in soil organic matter, which can be initiated, e.g. by land management (Weber et al, 2007;Ulyett et al, 2014;Elbl et al, 2015;Hagemann et al, 2017) or climate change (Rawls et al, 2003).…”

Ivy pelargonium response to media containing sewage sludge and potato pulp

“…3: 95-101 Plant Soil Environ. amount was close to the MF rate, but produced 32% higher grain N, due to the combination of a more constant release of N throughout the growth cycle, and the improvement of soil physical properties, primarily porosity (Kępka et al 2016). The beneficial effects of biosolids application on the growth and N uptake of spring barley may also be attributed to the supply of micronutrients (Esperschuetz et al 2016a), and to the improvement of soil biological activity (Elbl et al 2014, Plošek et al 2017. Thus, biosolids provide more benefits than mineral fertilisers, especially in semiarid conditions and in soils that are low in organic matter, which is a common feature in the Mediterranean region (Antolin et al 2005, Antoniadis et al 2015.…”