Relationship between mineral composition or soil texture and available silicon in alluvial paddy soils on the Shounai Plain, Japan

Abstract

To evaluate the relationship between the amount of available Silicon (Si) in paddy soils and their mineral properties on the Shounai Plain in Japan, which is formed from several parent materials, we evaluated the amount of available Si, the particle size distribution, the oxide composition of crystalline minerals and the amount of oxalate-extractable Si (Si o ), iron (Fe o ) and aluminum (Al o ) in the soil. The amount of available Si in the soil and the oxide content of the crystalline minerals differed among four soil groups that were distinguished by their clay mineral composition. There was no difference in the particle size distribution among the soil groups. The amount of available Si was positively related to the SiO 2 /Al 2 O 3 ratio of clay, the CaO concentration of silt and fine sand, and the amounts of Si o , Fe o and Al o in the soil. The amount of available Si in the soils was negative correlated with the Na 2 O and K 2 O concentrations of silt, the K 2 O concentration of fine sand, and the coarse sand content. These results suggest that the amount of available Si in soils is affected by the weathering resistivity of their minerals and that the particle size distribution and mineral composition are related to the available Si of the soils. Mineralogical properties, including the particle size distribution and mineral composition such as the SiO 2 /Al 2 O 3 ratio × clay fraction content and the amounts of CaO and MgO in silt-sized particles, were positively correlated with the amount of available Si in the soil, but these correlations were not found for fine sand-sized particles. The Si o , Fe o and SiO 2 /Al 2 O 3 ratio × clay fraction contents contributed approximately 50% to the amount of available Si in the soils. The amount of available Si in the soil was divided into two groups according to the location of the paddy field. The amount of soil-available Si in the alluvial plain was affected by the geology upstream through the mineral composition.

Long-term removal of wheat straw decreases soil amorphous silica at Broadbalk, Rothamsted

“…2 t Si for the same period of time) while they are slightly lower or within the same range when ASi zb values are used indicating that other mechanisms than plant uptake might significantly modify ASi stocks in soil. The rate at which Si can be depleted from the soil by plant uptake was found to reach 500 kg ha −1 year −1 under a rice paddy field (Makabe et al 2009), but the rate of removal of Si by wheat has not previously been investigated. With an average mean Si concentration of 14.4 mg g −1 DW in wheat whole shoot as measured by Ma and Takahashi (2002) and a mean straw yield of 4-9 t DW ha −1 year −1 (ADEME/ITCF 1998), Si uptake of a wheat crop would be approximately 94 kg ha −1 year −1 (or slightly larger if grain yield is also taken into account), that is slightly lower than that of rice or sugarcane, and larger than uptake calculated for this continuous wheat experiment.…”

“…However, correlations were observed between the Si concentration in rice and the percentage of clay in soils (Cheng 1982), and between the Si concentration in rice or banana and the stock of weatherable minerals (Henriet et al 2008;Makabe et al 2009). The weatherability of silicate minerals, including phytoliths which are particles of amorphous opaline silica (Piperno 1987), depends on environmental factors such as temperature and pH as well as the physico-chemical characteristics of the minerals which can be evaluated by thermodynamic and kinetic data (White and Brantley 1995;Heaney et al 1994).…”

Alleviation of abiotic and biotic stresses in plants by silicon supplementation

“…Conley (2002) estimated that annual amount of silicon stored in plants (60-200 Tmol/year) is of the same order of magnitude as the amount of silicon fixed by diatoms in the sea (240Tmol/year). Sugarcane can take silicon 300kg/hectare/year (Meyers and Keeping, 2001), rice 500 kg/hectare/year (Makabe et al 2009), 41-67 kg/hectare/year for tropical forest (Alexander et al 1997) and 23-44 kg/hectare/year for temperate forests (Cornelis et al 2010). Matichenkov and Bocharnikova (2001) calculated that approximately 210-224 million tonnes of silicon is removed from cultivated soil every year.…”

Benefits of plant silicon for crops: a review

“…It is also currently assumed that Si is not limiting in soils. However, crops can take up Si at a much faster rate than in natural systems: 300 kg ha −1 year −1 for sugar cane (Meyer and Keeping 2001) and 500 kg ha −1 year −1 for rice (Makabe et al 2009) compared with 41-67 kg ha −1 year −1 for tropical forests (Lucas et al 1993;Alexandre et al 1997), 22-67 kg ha −1 year −1 for US grasslands (Blecker et al 2006), and 2.3-44 kg ha −1 year −1 for temperate forests (Bartoli 1983;Gérard et al 2008;Cornelis et al 2010). Matichenkov and Bocharnikova (2001) calculated that 210-224 million tons of Si are removed from cultivated soil every year.…”