Evaluation of Soil S Pools under 23 Years of Maize Monoculture

Abstract

Sulfur nutrition is a critical part of proper crop growth and development. In our study, biomass yields (BY) and S uptake were investigated on long-term maize monoculture on haplic luvisol soil during the 23 years of this trial, as well as changes in water extractable (Sw), adsorbed (Sads), mineral (Sav), and pseudo-total S (St) fractions. Treatments used in this study are: (1) Control (Cont); (2) ammonium sulfate (AS); (3) urea and ammonium nitrate (UAN); (4) UAN + phosphorus and potassium (UAN + PK); (5) UAN + phosphorus, magnesium, sulfur (UAN + PMgS); and (6) Fallow. Recently, the Mehlich 3 method started to be used in the Czech Republic to determine content of plant available S. Using this method, it was found that the content of S extracted by Mehlich 3 (SM3) closely correlates to Sav in both topsoil and subsoil (r = 0.958 in 1997 and 0.990 in 2019, both at p < 0.001). We also found that, on average, during the entire experiment, all treatments had increased yields over Cont (135–147%) and increased S uptake (291, 192, 180, and 246% of Cont for AS, UAN, UAN + PK, and UAN + PMgS, respectively). Examining the changes from 1997 to 2019 in topsoil (0–30 cm depth), we discovered a decrease of S content in Sw, Sads, Sav, and St fractions on all treatments to an average of 34.6%, 65.8%, 42.2%, and 78.6% of their initial values. The exception was AS treatment, which doubled its initial content in mineral fractions and maintained the same levels of St, and which we attribute to the very high dose of S on this treatment (142 kg ha−1 year−1). Using the simple balance method, AS and UAN + PMgS treatments lost 142.2 and 95.3 kg S ha−1 year−1 to other sinks, except plant uptake, from the entire soil profile (0–60 cm) during 23 years of experiment. Other treatments also show significant losses with the exception of Fallow. Given these results, it is clear that content of sulfur in soil is generally decreasing and attention should be paid mainly towards minimizing of its losses.

Microbial Inoculation Improves Growth, Nutritional and Physiological Aspects of Glycine max (L.) Merr.

“…This result was expected because most of the S (>90%) is unavailable to plants because it is bound in organic form. Thus, plants depend on microorganisms that make SO 4 2− available in the rhizosphere by mineralization to the soil solution [ 70 , 71 , 72 ]. S is thus transported from the roots to the aerial part through the xylem mainly in the inorganic form of SO 4 2− [ 73 , 74 ].…”

The relationship of soil sulfur with glomalin-related soil protein and humic substances under different mineral and organic fertilisation

“…The second principal component (PC2) is the combination of mineral fractions of sulfur (S H 2 O , S ADS , and S AV ) as well as. The influence of C SOM and N T was discussed in Balík et al (2022) and Suran et al (2023); therefore, it will be omitted in this communication, and the focus will be dedicated to the relationship of GRSP and C SOM fractions and their interaction with sulfur fractions.…”

“…The pseudo-total sulfur (S T ) concentration in the soil was determined by the modified ISO: 11466 1995 (ISO 1995) method using aqua regia extraction (Suran et al 2023). The organic sulfur content (S ORG ) was calculated as the difference between the pseudototal content (S T ) and available (S AV ).…”

“…Details on the content of sulfur and carbon in the experiment. In this section (Table 3) is a compilation of different studies that focused on soil sulfur (Suran et al 2022(Suran et al , 2023 and soil organic carbon (Balík et al 2022) individually. Their significance can be studied in the aforementioned papers.…”

Long-term fertilization and manuring effects on the nexus between sulphur distribution and SOC in an Inceptisol over five decades under a finger millet-maize cropping system

“…Regardless of the nutrient management techniques, 100% NPK + FYM of 10 t ha − 1 and super optimum dosages plots showed an improvement in maize grain and straw yield (Gourav et al, 2018;Suran et al, 2023). The application of FYM could have given nutrients and SOM substrate to the soil, improving the soil rhizosphere, which was ascribed to the increase in biomass and yield.…”