Abstract
Effect of synthetic and natural water absorbing soil amendments on soil physical properties, fresh tuber yield and size of potato production was investigated in a field experiment in a semi-arid region in northern China in 2010–2012. Treatments included two different synthetic water absorbing amendments (potassium polyacrylate-PAA, polyacrylamide-PAM) and one natural amendment (humic acid-HA), both as single amendments, and compound amendments (natural combined with a synthetic) and a no amendment control. Soil amendments had highly significant effect (P≤0.01) on soil water holding capacity, soil cone penetration resistance and soil aggregate size fractions, but had no significant effect (P>0.05) on soil bulk density. Soil amendments increased fresh tuber yield by 4.2–32.9%, increased the proportion of tuber size category 1 (>150g) and decreased size category 3 (<75g) in all the three years. The compound amendment, with PAM+HA, showed best effect of all amendment treatments on soil physical properties in potato production, and deserves further research.
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