Biochar enhances Acrisol attributes and yield of bean in Brazilian tropical dry region

Abstract

ABSTRACT Biochar is a product rich in carbon, which improve the soil attributes and crop yield. In the Brazilian tropical dry region, common bean is cultivated under rainfed, in poor, acidic, and with low water retention soils. This work aims to evaluate the effect of biochar on soil physical and chemical attributes, on evapotranspiration (ET), water use efficiency (WUE), and on bean yield. The field experiment was conducted over four biochar rates (B0: no biochar; B10: biochar at 10 t ha−1; B20: 20 t ha−1 and B40: 40 t ha−1), and three replications. Our analysis revealed that different rates of biochar do not affect the soil physical attributes due to a mismatch between soil texture and the particle size of biochar. Treatments with biochar promoted an increase in soil pH, P content, cation exchange capacity, reduced the Al+H content, which caused an increase in bean yield and consequently WUE. Our findings expand our knowledge about the effect of the biochar applied to the Acrisols on decreasing the soil acidity and to increase the yield and WUE, and add important information that can be suitable for development of strategy to mitigate problems caused by instability of rains and poor fertility soils.