Soil pH Buffering Capacity and Nitrogen Availability Following Compost Application in a Tropical Acid Soil

Abstract

Tropical acid soils are highly weathered as they exist under tropical environment with high rainfall and temperature throughout the year, which affects nitrogen availability. Soil organic nitrogen is important in estimating soil nitrogen availability. The combined use of urea and compost in this study was carried out to decrease sole dependence on urea, buffer soil acidification, and reduce nitrogen losses through leaching. Thus, soil buffering capacity, incubation, and organic nitrogen fractionation studies were conducted to determine soil buffering capacity, availability of total nitrogen, organic fractions nitrogen, and inorganic nitrogen in soil after 90 days of incubation following compost. Soil pH, buffering capacity, total nitrogen, organic nitrogen fractions, exchangeable ammonium, and available nitrate were higher in all treatments with compost and combined use of urea and compost. Total hydrolyzable nitrogen, ammonium-nitrogen, (ammonium + amino sugar)-nitrogen, amino sugar-nitrogen, and amino acid-nitrogen were higher in soils with urea and compost suggesting that decomposition of soil organic fractions nitrogen into inorganic nitrogen (ammonium and available nitrate was affected by the addition of urea and compost. Urea can be amended with compost to regulate availability nitrogen in soil for crop use.

Adsorption and Desorption of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, and Soil Buffering Capacity Following Application of Chicken Litter Biochar to an Acid Soil

“…Functional groups such as carboxyl, phenolic, and alcoholic of organic amendments use to adsorb the aforementioned ions followed by their gradual release (desorption) for timely use by plant. Desorption occurs when adsorbed nutrients are released from the surface of soil organic matter and inorganic minerals [9]. Studies on NH 4 + adsorption are essential to enable determination of the ability of soils to respond to N fertilization.…”

Increasing the abundance of microorganisms in a regosol soil using biopelet fertilizer composed from biochar, chicken manure, and shrimp waste to increase soil fertility

“…The high organic C status is very important because the organic C in the soil can influence other soil properties for the better. The physical properties of the structure and the ability of the soil to store water, CEC, C/N, and the ability to support the soil are influenced by soil organic C content (Nelson and Su, 2010;Latifah et al, 2018;Hailegnaw et al, 2019). Soil organic C content also affects the activity of soil microorganisms (Wu et al, 2019;Rao et al, 2019) as a source of foodstuffs.…”

Integrated Bioplant and Groundnut Husk Biochar Compost Application on Yield of Lettuce in a Rhodic Kandiustalf

“…The addition of compost to soil generally helps to improve the structure and fertility status of the soil. Additionally, amendment of the soil with the biochar-compost should increase the pH of the moderately acidic soils to near neutral to enhance P availability and dry matter yield (Latifah et al, 2018;Sulemana et al, 2021) as evident in the pH and available P content, especially of the residual C40 soils. The respective 2.1-fold and 3-fold increases in fresh and dry matter yields over the lettuce grown in the un-amended soil following the application of 40 parts of compost (C40) may be due to higher availability of N and P from the compost.…”