Organic amendments improved soil properties and native plants’ performance in an Australian degraded land

Jonas Larsen; Mehran Rezaei Rashti; Maryam Esfandbod; Chengrong Chen

doi:10.1071/SR22252

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Next Contents Vol 62(4)

Organic amendments improved soil properties and native plants’ performance in an Australian degraded land

Jonas Larsen ^A , Mehran Rezaei Rashti

^B ^C ^* , Maryam Esfandbod ^B ^D and Chengrong Chen

^B ^C

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Logan City Council, Logan City, Qld 4114, Australia.

^B Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia.

^C School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia.

^D CSIRO Environment, Brisbane, Qld 4102, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: m.rezaeirashti@griffith.edu.au

Handling Editor: Mark Tibbett

Soil Research 62, SR22252 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR22252

Submitted: 23 November 2022 Accepted: 20 April 2024 Published: 23 May 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Context

Land degradation poses a substantial threat to both the sustainable environment and human health. Efforts towards rehabilitation and remediation often require addition of soil amendments and careful selection of plant species.

Aims

We assessed the effect of recycled organic amendments on improvement of soil physicochemical properties and performance of native plant species in an Australian degraded soil.

Methods

A glasshouse pot experiment investigated the effects of compost (CO), biochar (BC), and compost-biochar (COBC) mixture on performance of three native Australian plant species (Eucalyptus tereticornis (EU), Acacia leiocalyx (AC), and Banksia integrifolia (BA)) in a degraded soil.

Key results

Application of CO, BC, and COBC organic amendments increased soil dissolved organic carbon and microbial biomass carbon contents compared to the control treatment. COBC amendment increased nutrient retention and reduced CO₂ emissions compared to CO amendment. BC amendment also resulted in low CO₂ emissions similar to the control treatment, where no significant differences were observed. AC outperformed the EU and BA species in biomass production due to its leguminous nature, with amendment application had an insignificant effect on AC performance. Within the EU treatments, the COBC:EU demonstrated the highest biomass production, followed by CO:EU, BC:EU, and CK:EU, respectively.

Conclusion

All amendments exhibited overall improvements in soil and plant parameters, with more significant outcomes observed with COBC application. However, the observed improvements from biochar application were minimal in this short-term experiment, which may not have allowed for the manifestation of long-term benefits.

Implications

Further research is warranted to investigate the effects of compost and biochar amendments on diverse soil types and native plant species.

Keywords: Acacia leiocalyx, Australian native plants, Banksia integrifolia, biochar, compost, degraded land, Eucalyptus tereticornis, organic amendments.

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