Effect of the Application of Carbonized Biomass from Crop Residues on Soil Chemical Properties and Carbon Pools

Abstract

Objective of this study was to investigate the effect of carbonized biomass from crop residues on chemical properties of soil and soil carbon pools during soybean cultivation. The carbonized biomass was made by field scale mobile pyrolyzer. A pot experiment with soybean in sandy loam soil was conducted for 133 days in a greenhouse, by a completely randomized design with three replications. The treatments consisted of four levels including the control without input and three levels of carbonized biomass inputs of 9.75 Mg ha -1 , C-1 ; 19.5 Mg ha -1 , C-2 ; 39 Mg ha -1 , C-3. Soil samples were collected and analyzed pH, EC, TC, TN, inorganic-N, available phosphorus and exchangeable cations of the soils. Soil pH, Total-N and available phosphorus contents correspondingly increased with increasing the carbonized material input. The contents of soil carbon pools were 19.04 Mg C ha -1 for C-1, 26.19 Mg C ha -1 for C-2, 33.62 Mg C ha -1 for C-3 and 12.01 Mg C ha -1 for the control at the end of experiment, respectively. Increased contents of soil carbon pools relative to the control were estimated at 7.03 Mg C ha -1 for C-1, 14.18 Mg C ha -1 for C-2 and 21.62 Mg C ha -1 for C-3 at the end of experiment, respectively, indicating that the soil carbon pools were increased with increasing the input rate of the carbonized biomass. Consequently, it seems that the carbonized biomass derived from the agricultural byproducts such as crop residues could increase the soil carbon pools and that the experimental results will be applied to the future study of soil carbon sequestration.