Rice-husk Biochar Improved Soil Properties and Wheat Yield on an Acidified Purple Soil

DOI

10.2991/iccahe-16.2016.52How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Biochar; Wheat; Soil fertility; Soil acidification; Phosphorus; Iron

Abstract

Purple soil is one of important agricultural soils in China. However, widespread soil acidification and soil fertility decline have limited the sustainable use of the purple soil in recent decades. Biochar, derived from agricultural waste such as rice husk, shows great potential for controlling soil acidification and fertility improvement of acidified soils. In this study, pot experiment was conducted to investigate the impact of rice-husk biochar application on soil properties and wheat yield on an acidified purple soil. The results showed that soil pH under treatments of 0.5%, 1%, 2% and 5% biochar application was respectively increased by 0.2, 0.4, 0.5 and 1.2 units than that of the treatment without biochar application. Conversely, soil available iron content after biochar application was significantly reduced by 23.6%, 41.5%, 65.4% and 96.0%, respectively. Furthermore, biochar applications increased soil available phosphorus content by up to 115 mg/kg from 20 mg/kg under treatment without biochar application. The improved soil properties after biochar application resulted in significantly higher grain yield of wheat (Triticum aestivum. L. Varieties Chuanmai45 and Mianyang31). Compared with the control, wheat yield with treatments of 0.5%, 1%, 2% and 5% biochar application was increased by 3.81%, 7.71%, 45.61% and 57.15%, respectively. The response of wheat yield to biochar application was closely correlated with soil available phosphorus and iron content. We therefore concluded that biochar application could improve soil fertility by decreasing soil acidity and iron toxicity, and consequently increasing soil phosphorus availability. These integrated effects thus resulted in better growth and yield of wheat grown in acidified purple soil.

Copyright

© 2016, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Danping Li
AU  - Xiaojun Shi
AU  - Yanan Zhao
AU  - Xinbin Zhou
AU  - Yueqiang Zhang
PY  - 2016/10
DA  - 2016/10
TI  - Rice-husk Biochar Improved Soil Properties and Wheat Yield on an Acidified Purple Soil
BT  - Proceedings of the 2016 5th International Conference on Civil, Architectural and Hydraulic Engineering (ICCAHE 2016)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 294
EP  - 302
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iccahe-16.2016.52
DO  - 10.2991/iccahe-16.2016.52
ID  - Li2016/10
ER  -