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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Transformation of soil phosphorus fractions: the role of time and fertilisation

Qiujun Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4315-4811 A B , Dejie Guo A B , Yehong Xu A B and Yan Ma A B *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Institute of Agricultural Resource and Environment, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China.

B National Agricultural Experiment Station for Agricultural Environment, Luhe, Nanjing 211500, China.

* Correspondence to: myjaas@sina.com

Handling Editor: Tandra Fraser

Soil Research 60(8) 792-803 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR21127
Submitted: 12 May 2021  Accepted: 18 May 2022   Published: 6 July 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

Context: Organic fertilisation may increase soil phosphorus (P) availability and increase risk of P loss to groundwater.

Aims: To understand the effect of continuously applying organic fertilisers on formation of P fractions.

Methods: A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different fertilisation (CF, chemical fertiliser; COF, cow dung compost with chemical fertiliser; POF, pig manure compost with chemical fertiliser) on different soil P fractions for five growing seasons.

Key results: Compared with CF, the COF and POF treatments had significantly higher total P and available P contents in each season. The COF treatment showed the highest concentration of NaOH-Pi; however, POF showed the highest concentration of HCl-Pi in all seasons. There were significant positive correlations between concentrations of total P (r = 0.863, P = 0.001), available P (r = 0.590, P = 0.006), each P fraction (r = 0.447 to 0.862, P = 0.048 to 0.001) and organic carbon concentration. Concentrations of total P (r = −0.473, P = 0.035), available P (r = −0.589, P = 0.006) and each P fraction (except HCl-Pi) (r = −0.711 to −0.476, P = 0.001 to 0.034) showed significant negative correlations with soil pH. Available P concentration showed the highest correlation with concentrations of residual P (r = 0.665, P = 0.007), HCl-Pi (r = 0.413, P = 0.126) and NaOH-Pi (r = 0.282, P = 0.309) in CF, COF and POF treatments, respectively.

Conclusions: Continuous application of organic fertiliser can significantly improve P availability through impacting distribution of P fractions.

Implications: Further studies are needed to establish the release risk of each P fraction in soils.

Keywords: correlation, field experiment, five growing seasons, organic fertiliser, P availability, P transformation, soil P fraction, soil pH and organic C.


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