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Application of biochar to highly weathered tropical soils has been shown to enhance soil quality and decrease leaching of nutrients. Little, however, is known about the effects of biochar applications on temperate region soils. Our objective was to quantify the impact of biochar on leaching of plant nutrients following application of swine manure to a typical Midwestern agricultural soil. Repacked...
Successive horizons of thick forest floors may be considered as a litterfall decomposition sequence, but the evolution of physico-chemical properties along such a sequence is poorly known. Here, we have characterized the physico-chemical properties within a thick forest floor and evaluated their potential impacts on the release of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC). Seven sub-horizons of a mor forest...
Soil organic matter (SOM) in dry tropical forests (DTFs) of Costa Rica is less studied compared to wet tropical forests. Specifically, black carbon (BC) from biomass burning during the dry season but also prescribed burning during any prior pastoral land use contributes to SOM in DTF. Data on BC are needed for predicting the response of the soil organic carbon (SOC) pool to the projected climate change...
Detailed information on the spatial variation of soils is desirable for many agricultural and environmental applications. This research explores three approaches that use soil fuzzy membership values to predict detailed spatial variation of soil properties. The first two are weighted average models with which the soil property value at a location is the average of the typical soil property values...
Increasing demand for locally produced farm products, with a lower input of mineral fertilisers, leads to a greater reliance on the inherent capacity of soils to supply plant nutrients. Typically 98% of all soil potassium (K) is found in K-feldspars and phyllosilicates, however the potential bioavailability of K from different mineral forms varies significantly. As a basis for improving sustainable...
The potential of infrared spectroscopy to establish differences in terms of the environmental factors on the humification processes has been assessed on Mediterranean forest soils from Central Spain developed under sclerophyllic and gymnosperm vegetation. Humic acids were isolated from 21 soil samples differing in terms of vegetation (pine, holm oak, oak), geological substrate (granite, limestone),...
Perlite is a glassy volcanic rock with a rhyolitic composition, traditionally used in the construction and chemical industries. In the last two decades perlite has become an important soilless growing medium, and is used for potting mixes in the horticultural industry. Plant growth induces significant changes in the medium and, therefore, growing plants in perlite poses an interesting dilemma regarding...
Forest ecosystems play an important role in the global carbon (C) cycle, acting as a carbon sink. Data on soil organic matter (SOM) stocks and turnover rates in relation to vegetation properties are important to understand carbon storage distribution mechanisms and to upscale carbon stocks to the stand scale. The canopy structure may influence the spatial variation of carbon input, firstly, by governing...
Pines (Pinus sylvestris L.) have been widely used for monoculture forest stands in north-eastern Germany. However, several studies have discussed the need to convert monoculture into mixed forest stands such as pine–oak forest. In this study, we evaluated the impact of 102years-old pine (P. sylvestris L.) in monoculture and mixed forest stands of P. sylvestris+Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl. of different...
Soil water repellency (SWR) is widely thought to be influenced by soil pH, however, few studies have systematically investigated the relationship between these variables. Specifically the hypothesis that the pH may control repellency via changes in the variable surface charge of soil material has not yet been tested. In previous work, methods for changing soil pH have also involved changes in soil...
The concentric-disk tension infiltrometer (CDTI) may be used to simultaneously measure the confined (K c ) and the unconfined (K u ) soil hydraulic conductivity, but it has received little testing. Comparison between K c and K u can be affected by the calculation approach applied to analyze unconfined steady-state infiltration rates. The objectives of this investigation...
Soil pollution delineation is a difficult task because there may be multiple pollution sources and complex transport schemes. In this study, four heavy-metal concentrations, namely Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn, were collected at 1082 sampling sites in central Taiwan. Conditioned Latin Hypercube Sampling (cLHS) is used to determine the most cost-effective sampling strategies for long-term monitoring of multiple...
Knowledge of soil spatial variability is important in natural resource management, interpolation and soil sampling design, but requires a considerable amount of geo-referenced data. In this study, mid-infrared spectroscopy in combination with spatial analyses tools is being proposed to facilitate landscape evaluation and monitoring. Mid-infrared spectroscopy (MIRS) and geostatistics were integrated...
A nitrogen budget study of a highly fertilized coffee plantation growing on an Acrisol (Ultisol: Ustic Paleohumult) in Southern Costa Rica provided clear evidence of low nitrate (NO 3− ) leaching to groundwater, in spite of a large annual rainfall and fairly high soil permeability. In this study, conducted at the same site, we measured soil properties in relation to nitrate adsorption...
Although the significant impact of mound-building termites on physical, chemical and biochemical soil properties over large areas of the (sub-) tropics has often been discussed, little is known about the influence of termites on electro-chemical properties of Ferralsols. In this study, we compared the curves describing the total cation exchange capacity (CEC T ), the base cation exchange capacity...
Soil monitoring yields large and heterogeneous data sets. To identify the prevailing processes as well as identifying spatial patterns or temporal trends, mostly linear approaches are used. Here, a nonlinear approach, Isometric Feature Mapping (Isomap), was applied and compared to the established linear Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to a data set from a long-term monitoring program in the forested...
The most popular live stakes used as supports in black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) plantations of the humid tropics are Ailanthus triphysa (Dennst.) Alston., Erythrina variegata L., Gliricidia sepium (Jacq.) Steud. and Garuga pinnata Roxb. Studies on soil properties in the rhizosphere of these tree species are limited. We report here information on soil physico-chemical, biochemical and microbial properties...
Concentrations of dissolved reactive phosphorus (C DRP ) and particle-bound phosphorus (C PP ) were investigated in soil columns taken from different parts of three selected agricultural fields. The columns (mini-lysimeters 20cm in diameter, 20cm high) were exposed to on average 64±6mm of simulated rainfall. Total phosphorus concentrations (C TP ) in water percolating from...
The aim of this study was to evaluate the spatial distribution of different void types and Fe–Mn oxide segregations in the A and B horizons of three Orthic Humic Gleysols from an uncultivated area and two long-time experimental plots – an unfertilized continuous maize plot and a fertilized maize–oats–alfalfa–alfalfa rotation plot – from Woodslee, Ontario. In view of the fact that numerous X-ray CT...
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