Soil Aeration and Its Role for Plants

Gliński, J.; Stępniewski, Witold

doi:10.1201/9781351076685

Cited by 133 publications

(107 citation statements)

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“…Here, the addition of quicklime has proven to effectively enhance aeration properties in terms of distinctly higher oxygen diffusion rates in 50 and 90 cm depths. Without quicklime (NIL) the diffusivity was restricted to critical upper limits for aeration (< 0.02, e.g ., for plant growth) ( Gliński and Stępniewski , ). This was also found by Mengede and Burghardt () who linked similarly low diffusivities measured in 75–80 cm depth in a grave soil to a loss of pore continuity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Changes in soil aeration and soil respiration of simulated grave soils after quicklime application

Mordhorst

Zimmermann

Fleige

et al. 2017

J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci.

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The decomposition of buried human remains on cemeteries can be delayed in poorly aerated graves due to high water levels and a low permeable pore system for oxygen and water transport. With aim to improve the soil aeration properties in the burial environment, the addition of quicklime (CaO) to the grave backfill was tested. Quicklime is expected to promote a stronger aggregation and stabilization of the backfilled soil mainly by forcing an immediate dehydration and particle cementation processes. Two different grave simulations (without buried corpses) were prepared: (1) mixing the grave backfill with 20 kg m−3 quicklime (“CaO”) and (2) backfill without CaO (“NIL”) on a cemetery in Northern Germany. The soil type was a Terric Anthrosol (Stagnic) with a loamy sand texture. Undisturbed soil cores were taken from two depths before and after excavation and backfill at regular intervals of 3 months in order to analyze changes in (1) gaseous transport functions expressed by air‐filled porosity, air permeability (air permeameter), gas diffusivity (double chamber method) and related pore continuity indices as well as in (2) soil respiration (alkali trap method) representing microbial activity. Results clearly demonstrated a more conductive pore system in the CaO variant reflected by higher gas diffusivity and air permeability over 1 year compared to the NIL variant. Pore continuity indices also indicated a more connective pore system for the CaO variant. Effects of CaO application on soil respiration rate differed between the quarterly sampling times. Results indicated that microorganism were still active under alkaline soil conditions induced by CaO application, but the quantitative determination of biologically produced CO2 is influenced by chemical reactions when hydrated quicklime [Ca(OH)2] was reformed to limestone under consumption of CO2. The experiments indicate that the application of quicklime is a promising approach to improve aeration properties of grave soils and is therefore proposed as an adequate method to improve the aeration of burials on cemeteries.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further details concerning the calculation of the diffusion coefficient (D s ) are given in Uteau et al (). Gas diffusivity is expressed by a relative diffusion coefficient (D s /D 0 ) with D 0 representing the diffusion coefficient of oxygen in free air at given temperature and atmospheric pressure conditions ( Gliński and Stępniewski , ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in soil aeration and soil respiration of simulated grave soils after quicklime application

Mordhorst

Zimmermann

Fleige

et al. 2017

J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci.

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“…The free-air N 2 O diffusion coefficient at 15 °C, 0.1582 cm s −1 , was used and adjusted for soil tortuosity based on the air-filled porosity23, which was calculated using the measured bulk density and gravimetric moisture contents. Our most conservative calculations, using the lowest air-filled porosity and assuming an impervious boundary condition at bottom of the soil cores, showed that the 15 N 2 O label had diffused into the 5 cm long soil cores and back to the headspace within 0.5 h. Thus, our sampling interval during the 3-hour measurement period was sufficient to allow mixing of the label gas with the soil-derived N 2 O in interconnected air-filled pores and to quantify the changes in N 2 O concentrations and 15 N 2 O enrichments in the headspace.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling gross N2O production and consumption in soil

Wen¹,

Chen

Dannenmann

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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The difficulty of measuring gross N2O production and consumption in soil impedes our ability to predict N2O dynamics across the soil-atmosphere interface. Our study aimed to disentangle these processes by comparing measurements from gas-flow soil core (GFSC) and 15N2O pool dilution (15N2OPD) methods. GFSC directly measures soil N2O and N2 fluxes, with their sum as the gross N2O production, whereas 15N2OPD involves addition of 15N2O into a chamber headspace and measuring its isotopic dilution over time. Measurements were conducted on intact soil cores from grassland, cropland, beech and pine forests. Across sites, gross N2O production and consumption measured by 15N2OPD were only 10% and 6%, respectively, of those measured by GFSC. However, 15N2OPD remains the only method that can be used under field conditions to measure atmospheric N2O uptake in soil. We propose to use different terminologies for the gross N2O fluxes that these two methods quantified. For 15N2OPD, we suggest using ‘gross N2O emission and uptake’, which encompass gas exchange within the 15N2O-labelled, soil air-filled pores. For GFSC, ‘gross N2O production and consumption’ can be used, which includes both N2O emitted into the soil air-filled pores and N2O directly consumed, forming N2, in soil anaerobic microsites.

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“…The common parameter describing the ability of soils to transport gases by diffusion is the relative apparent gas-diffusion coefficient (D S /D 0 ) (Glinski and Stepniewsks, 1985), where D 0 is the gas diffusivity of the tracer gas and D S is the gas diffusivity through the soil. For example, a relative apparent gas-diffusion coefficient of 0.1 means that the gas flux through the soil amounts to 10% of the flow within the free atmosphere.…”

Section: Experimental Design and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The traffic impact on soil structure is commonly described using bulk density (Brais and Camiré, 1998;Goutal et al, 2012b;Page-Dumroese et al, 2006), as it is very easy to assess. The gas diffusivity is a wellestablished method to assess soil structure (Frede, 1986;Glinski and Stepniewsks, 1985;Rolston, 1986). Gaertig et al (2002) showed that the CO 2 concentration in soil gas increases with decreasing gas diffusivity in the topsoil.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%