Calcium Losses from Reclaimed Sod-Podzolic Light Loamy Soil at Different Levels of Moisture Availability

Abstract

In a 10-year laboratory experiment on columns, the migration mobility of calcium remaining in dolomite-reclaimed sod-podzolic soil after harvesting crops was studied. A “fund” of calcium compounds capable of migration in years with average long-term, excessive and insufficient levels of moisture has been identified. It was found that an increase in the volume of drained moisture contributed to an increase in unproductive calcium losses. The higher the dose of dolomite and the smaller the particle size, the greater the eluvial calcium loss. It is shown that the bulk of the calcium capable of migration was removed from the soil at the initial stage of washing. During the entire study period, migration calcium losses after pea harvesting exceeded losses after mustard cultivation. Empirical dependences describing the loss of calcium from the soil produced by dolomite in a wide range of doses have been developed. Various variants of the experiment were ranked according to the scale of calcium losses. It is shown that over 10 years of observations, the maximum calcium losses as a result of migration were characteristic of the variant of the experiment produced by dolomite flour calculated from the full dose of hydrolytic acidity. Calcium losses from soil reclaimed by dolomite particles of 5–7 and 7–10 mm in doses equal to 3 and 5 Hc were less.Key words: sod-podzolic light loamy soil, soil moisture availability, chemical reclamation, eluvial calcium losses, empirical models of migration process.