Abstract
AbstractIncreasing the water‐holding capacity of sandy soils will help improve efficiency of water use in agricultural production, and may be critical for providing enough energy and food for an increasing global population. We hypothesized that addition of biochar will increase the water‐holding capacity of a sandy loam soil, and that the depth of biochar incorporation will influence the rate of biochar surface oxidation in the amended soils. Hardwood fast pyrolysis biochar was mixed with soil (0%, 3%, and 6% w/w) and placed into columns in either the bottom 11.4 cm or the top 11.4 cm to simulate deep banding in rows (DBR) and uniform topsoil mixing (UTM) applications, respectively. Four sets of 18 columns were incubated at 30 °C and 80% RH. Every 7 days, 150 mL of 0.001 M calcium chloride solution was added to the columns to produce leaching. Sets of columns were harvested after 1, 15, 29, and 91 days. Addition of biochar increased the gravity‐drained water content 23% relative to the control. Bulk density of the control soils increased with incubation time (from 1.41 to 1.45 g cm−3), whereas bulk density of biochar‐treated soils was up to 9% less than the control and remained constant throughout the incubation period. Biochar did not affect the CEC of the soil. The results suggest that biochar added to sandy loam soil increases water‐holding capacity and might increase water available for crop use.
Highlights
The global energy demand is growing rapidly and it is estimated that approximately the 88% of this demand is satisfied with fossil fuels
Water partitioning Biochar-amended columns had a significant increase of 23% in gravity-drained water content (Fig. 2), relative to the control, calculated based on the difference in mass of water retained per gram of oven-dry soil by each treatment (0.1943 and 0.1583 average water retained by biochar and control treatments, respectively)
The results of this study showed that biochar addition to a sandy soil significantly increase gravity-drained water content, relative to the no-biochar controls
Summary
The global energy demand is growing rapidly and it is estimated that approximately the 88% of this demand is satisfied with fossil fuels. Increasing population, economic growth, energy demand, and climate change are putting substantial stress on the world’s water resources (Brown, 2010). The agricultural sector is estimated to account for 70% of total global water withdrawals, the vast majority of which is used for irrigation. The UN has projected a need to double global food production by 2050 to keep up with growing demand driven by both population and economic growth. Water use efficiency in both dryland and irrigated agriculture will need to be substantially improved if we are going to meet this growing demand for food and fuel (Oki & Kanae, 2006)
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