Role of carbon and nitrogen mineralisation of chitosan and crop straws in ameliorating acidity of acidic Ultisols
Jackson Nkoh Nkoh
A B D , Peng Guan A C , Ren-yong Shi A , Ru-hai Wang A , Jiu-yu Li A and Ren-kou Xu A C *
A State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 821, Nanjing, China.
B Department of Chemistry, University of Buea, P.O. Box 63, Buea, Cameroon.
C College of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
D Present address: Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresource and Eco-Environmental Science, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Plant Epigenetics, College of Life Sciences and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
Abstract
Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) transformation processes in soils play an important role in the fluctuation of soil pH. Incorporation of chitosan and crop straws, byproducts from fishery and agriculture, into acidic soils can increase soil pH through decarboxylation, decomposition, N immobilisation and ammonification.
The study was designed to evaluate the transformation of organic N and C from chitosan and/or crop straws and their effects on soil physicochemical properties.
Chitosan, rice straw and maize straw were incubated with two acidic Ultisols from Langxi (Soil 1) and Yingtan (Soil 2) differing in initial pH. Six treatments were prepared in triplicate: control (no amendment), 4% chitosan, 4% rice straw, 4% maize straw, 2% chitosan + 2% rice straw, and 2% chitosan + 2% maize straw. Soil pH, N transformation and CO2 evolution were estimated at different time intervals.
After 40 days of incubation, control soil pH decreased by 0.35 and 0.32 units for Soils 1 and 2, respectively. Rice straw, maize straw, chitosan, rice straw–chitosan and maize straw–chitosan significantly increased soil pH by 0.51, 0.17, 2.27, 1.78 and 2.02 units for Soil 1, and 0.71, 0.16, 0.67, 0.49 and 0.68 units for Soil 2 (P < 0.01). The respective treatments decreased exchangeable acidity by 62%, 51%, 95%, 95% and 95% for Soil 1 and 75%, 69%, 88%, 88% and 87% for Soil 2. In treatments containing chitosan, the pH increase resulted from ammonification of organic N and mineralisation of organic C, with the effect higher in Soil 1 than Soil 2.
Amending acidic soils with chitosan and crop residues can effectively increase soil pH and slow soil acidification rate.
This study provides useful information for amelioration of acidic soils.
Keywords: amelioration of soil acidity, ammonium-N, chemical forms of Al, chitosan, maize straw, mineralisation of organic materials, nitrate-N, rice straw, soil exchangeable acidity, soil pH.
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