Abstract
Biochar can serve as a soil ameliorant preventing nutrient leaching. Due to its porous structure and chemical composition, it can also adsorb elements on its surface. However, various biochars have different sorption ability, and the mechanistic understanding of nutrient storage in biochar is missing. It is not clear if nutrients adsorbed by biochar will be available for plants. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate biochar efficacy in pure substrates to characterise its specific influence on plants. In this study, the sorption capacity and ability of the wood-based biochar to provide barley plants with nutrients was investigated. The sorption capacity of biochar was investigated by saturating it with Gelrigel nutrient solution. Then nutrient-enriched biochar was tested for its effect on barley growth in comparison with non-enriched biochar. The results of the sorption experiment showed that the wood-based biochar could adsorb high amounts of nutrients such as ammonium (NH4+), potassium, calcium and phosphate (PO43-), but not nitrate (NO3-). Nutrient-enriched biochar showed an ability to support 46% higher dry biomass of barley than non-enriched biochar. These results suggest a potential of nutrient-enriched biochar for recovering essential nutrients for plants.
Highlights
Growing rates of mineral fertiliser production and application to agricultural soils lead to harmful effects to the environment
Labile carbon in biochar represents a small proportion of the total content, less than 0.01–0.07 % (Lin et al, 2012; Uchimiya et al, 2013), and its content and composition are dependent on both the biochar feedstock material and biochar pyrolysis conditions
It was demonstrated that the biochar made of wood had high porosity and sorption capacity
Summary
Growing rates of mineral fertiliser production and application to agricultural soils lead to harmful effects to the environment. Production of mineral fertilisers causes air pollution with aerosols and greenhouse gases, contamination of soils and water bodies with heavy metals. The use of these fertilisers in agriculture has tremendous negative effects such as soil acidification, heavy metal pollution, and. 2020/76/2 increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from soil (Laird et al, 2010; Savci, 2012). Approximately 2–10% of nutrients from mineral fertilisers leach from the soil to water bodies causing eutrophication (Savci, 2012). Losses of nutrients through leaching and GHG emissions considerably decrease the efficiency of mineral fertilisers. Improving of nutrient use efficiency is required to decrease production and use of fertilisers. Researchers propose amendment of soils with biochar as a solution to retain nutrients and decrease their leaching from agricultural soils
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call