The Effect of Biochar on the Growth and N Fertilizer Requirement of Maize (Zea mays L.) in Green House Experiment

Abstract

Greenhouse experiments were carried out to study the effect of biochar and other organic amendment (Chicken Manure, CM; and City waste compost, CW) using on the growth and N fertilizer requirement of maize. The first experiment was carried out to study the effect of biochar application to maize growth, and then continued to study the residual effect of biochar. The second experiment was carried out to study the effect of biochar application on nitrogen fertilizer requirement. The results show that the first season of maize biomass of organic amendment of treated soils did not significantly different from no organic amendment. However, organic amendment improved soil fertility status, especially increasing C-organic, N, K and CEC. The biomass of the second season maize of biochar of treated soil was higher compared to the other treatments. The second experiment shows that biochar application decreased N fertilizer requirement. To produce 3.23 Mg ha -1 biomass, it required 90 kg ha -1 N for 15 Mg ha -1 CM biochar treated soil, and 160 kg ha -1 for the non treated soil.

Impact of Melaleuca quinquenervia Biochar on Phaseolus vulgaris Growth, Soil Nutrients, and Microbial Gas Flux

“…Terra Preta, a rare Amazonian soil formed through intentional slashing and charring of trees and waste biomass, led to the development of enhanced soil fertility (O'Neill et al, 2009). Biochar addition to soil is heralded to provide benefits such as increased cation exchange capacity, enhanced nutrient availability and retention (Chidumayo, 1994;Glaser et al, 2002;Liang et al, 2006;Novak et al, 2009a), immobilization of soil contaminants (Beesley and Marmiroli, 2011;Chen et al, 2011), improvements to pH and N cycling in soil (Clough and Condron, 2010;Utomo Widowati et al, 2012), improved soil aeration and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions Van Zwieten et al, 2009Woolf et al, 2010;Kammann et al, 2012), and improved C sequestration ).…”

“…With the rise of small-scale sustainable farms in South Florida interested in incorporating biochar without the use of synthetic fertilizers, there is a need to understand how biochar application affects agronomic production and soil properties in settings where these chemical inputs are not applied. Many previous agronomic studies using biochar rarely conducted trials without synthetic fertilizers given the potential for biochar to adsorb nutrients via high cation exchange capacity, porosity, and high surface area (Schulz and Glaser, 2012;Spokas et al, 2012;Utomo Widowati et al, 2012;Biederman and Harpole, 2013;Moonilall et al, 2017). This study seeks to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on biochar by using invasive species M. quinquenervia as a biochar feedstock and evaluating its impact within a sustainable system.…”

Effect of Biochar and Inorganic Fertilizer in Yam (Dioscorea rotundata Poir) Production in a Forest Agroecological Zone

“…The biochar used in the study had higher values of pH, exchangeable (K, Ca, Mg, Na), organic matter, organic C and total N compared to the initial soil used for the experiment. Increase in soil parameters as a result of biochar and fertilizer amendment has been similarly reported by several workers (Utomo, Guritno, & Soehono, 2012;Zhang et al, 2012;Chintala et al, 2014a) and has been attributed to the nutrient content of the soil amendments used and the greater nutrient retention of the biochar applied to the soil.…”

Growth Rates and Sunflower Production in Function of Fertilization with Biochar and NPK

“…Utomo et al (2012) verified that the application of 15 t ha -1 of biochar reduced the need for application of nitrogen fertilizer by up to 43% to produce the same amount of maize dry matter; however, according to Steiner et al (2007) greater efficiency when it is associated with mineral fertilization due to its low availability of nutrients.…”