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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 47(5)

Spectroscopic behaviour of 14C-labeled humic acids in a long-term field experiment with three cropping systems

Michael Tatzber A D , Michael Stemmer B , Heide Spiegel B , Christian Katzlberger B , Franz Zehetner A , Georg Haberhauer C , Elena Garcia-Garcia A and Martin H. Gerzabek A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Institute of Soil Research, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Peter Jordan Straße 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria.

B Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Vienna, Spargelfeldstraße 191, 1226 Vienna, Austria.

C Austrian Research Centers GmbH, Department of Environmental Research, 2444 Seibersdorf, Austria.

D Corresponding author. Email: michael.tatzber@boku.ac.at

Australian Journal of Soil Research 47(5) 459-469 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR08231
Submitted: 11 October 2008  Accepted: 20 April 2009   Published: 18 August 2009

Abstract

The stabilisation of 14C-labelled farmyard manure was investigated under different cropping systems (crop rotation, monoculture, and bare fallow) in a long-term field experiment established in 1967. Solid-state 13C-NMR of bulk soils yielded a gradient of increasing aromatic properties in the order: straw manure–crop rotation < straw manure–monoculture < straw and farmyard manure–bare fallow. The opposite trend was observed for O-alkyl groups. The farmyard manure–bare fallow treatment was used to investigate changes of humic acids (HAs) with time. The FT-IR bands of aromatics, carbonyl groups, and a band of methyls and benzene rings increased over the 36 years of the experiment, whereas 2 amide bands and a band of sulfone and/or ester groups decreased. Fluorescence spectroscopy verified the increase in aromatic properties with age. Consequently, during soil organic matter stabilisation, HAs showed increasing properties of carbonyl and aromatic groups, whereas amidic groups decreased. The dynamic character of HAs, as shown by 14C, was also reflected by distinct spectroscopic changes over the period of investigation.

Additional keywords: crop, FT-IR, solid-state 13C-NMR, fluorescence spectroscopy.


Acknowledgements

This work was financed by the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF), project number P16667-B06. We thank Gabriele Pusch for helpful information. We are much obliged to Ruth Pöll, Ewald Brauner, and Elisabeth Kopecky for performing the elemental analyses and to Heike Knicker for the 13C-NMR measurements. We also thank Georg Lair for linguistic help.


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