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Biochar decelerates soil organic nitrogen cycling but stimulates soil nitrification in a temperate arable field trial.

ABSTRACT: Biochar production and subsequent soil incorporation could provide carbon farming solutions to global climate change and escalating food demand. There is evidence that biochar amendment causes fundamental changes in soil nutrient cycles, often resulting in marked increases in crop production, particularly in acidic and in infertile soils with low soil organic matter contents, although comparable outcomes in temperate soils are variable. We offer insight into the mechanisms underlying these findings by focusing attention on the soil nitrogen (N) cycle, specifically on hitherto unmeasured processes of organic N cycling in arable soils. We here investigated the impacts of biochar addition on soil organic and inorganic N pools and on gross transformation rates of both pools in a biochar field trial on arable land (Chernozem) in Traismauer, Lower Austria. We found that biochar increased total soil organic carbon but decreased the extractable organic C pool and soil nitrate. While gross rates of organic N transformation processes were reduced by 50-80%, gross N mineralization of organic N was not affected. In contrast, biochar promoted soil ammonia-oxidizer populations (bacterial and archaeal nitrifiers) and accelerated gross nitrification rates more than two-fold. Our findings indicate a de-coupling of the soil organic and inorganic N cycles, with a build-up of organic N, and deceleration of inorganic N release from this pool. The results therefore suggest that addition of inorganic fertilizer-N in combination with biochar could compensate for the reduction in organic N mineralization, with plants and microbes drawing on fertilizer-N for growth, in turn fuelling the belowground build-up of organic N. We conclude that combined addition of biochar with fertilizer-N may increase soil organic N in turn enhancing soil carbon sequestration and thereby could play a fundamental role in future soil management strategies.

SUBMITTER: Prommer J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3907405 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Biochar decelerates soil organic nitrogen cycling but stimulates soil nitrification in a temperate arable field trial.

Prommer Judith J Wanek Wolfgang W Hofhansl Florian F Trojan Daniela D Offre Pierre P Urich Tim T Schleper Christa C Sassmann Stefan S Kitzler Barbara B Soja Gerhard G Hood-Nowotny Rebecca Clare RC

PloS one 20140130 1

Biochar production and subsequent soil incorporation could provide carbon farming solutions to global climate change and escalating food demand. There is evidence that biochar amendment causes fundamental changes in soil nutrient cycles, often resulting in marked increases in crop production, particularly in acidic and in infertile soils with low soil organic matter contents, although comparable outcomes in temperate soils are variable. We offer insight into the mechanisms underlying these findi ...[more]

PMID: 24497947

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Project description:Biochar amendment can influence the abundance, activity, and community structure of soil microbes. However, scare information is present about the effect of the combined application of biochar with synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer under paddy field condition. We aimed to resolve this research gap in rice field conditions through different biochar in combination with N fertilizers on soil nutrients, soil microbial communities, and rice grain yield. The present study involves eight treatments in the form of biochar (0, 10, 20, and 30 t ha-1) and N (135 and 180 kg ha-1) fertilizer amendments. The soil microbial communities were characterized using high-throughput sequencing of 16S and Internal transcribed spacer (ITS) ribosomal RNA gene amplicons. Experiential findings showed that the treatments had biochar amendments along with N fertilizer significantly advanced soil pH, soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), soil microbial carbon (SMBC), soil microbial nitrogen (SMBN), and rice grain yield in comparison to sole N application. Furthermore, in comparison with control in the first year (2019), biochar amendment mixed with N fertilizer had more desirable relative abundance of microorganism, phyla Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia with better relative abundance ranging from 8.49, 4.60, 46.30, and 1.51% in T7, respectively. Similarly, during 2020, bacteria phyla Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Gemmatimonadetes, Planctomycetes, and Verrucomicrobia were resulted in higher and ranging from 8.69, 5.18, 3.5, 1.9, 4.0, and 1.6%, in biochar applied treatments, respectively, as compared to control (T1). Among the treatments, Sphingopyxis and Thiobacillus bacterial genus were in higher proportion in T7 and T3, respectively, as compared to other treatments and Bacillus was higher in T6. Interestingly, biochar addition significantly decreased the soil fungi phyla Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Chytridiomycota, and Rozellomycota, in 2020 as compared to 2019. Whereas biochar addition to soil decreased Echria, Kohlmeyeriopsis, and Westerdykella fungal genus as compared to non-biochar treatments. The redundancy analysis showed that soil biochemical traits were positively correlated with soil bacteria. In addition, correlation analysis showed that soil bacteria including Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes, and Proteobacteria strongly correlated with rice grain yield. This study demonstrated that soil nutrients and bacteria contribute to an increase in rice yield in combined biochar amendment with lower N treatments.

Dataset Information

Biochar decelerates soil organic nitrogen cycling but stimulates soil nitrification in a temperate arable field trial.

Publications

Biochar decelerates soil organic nitrogen cycling but stimulates soil nitrification in a temperate arable field trial.

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