Industrial and agricultural waste amendments interact with microorganism activities to enhance P availability in rice-paddy soils

Abstract

Adding industrial and agricultural wastes to farmland can increase soil available phosphorus (P) pool and boost crop production, but the process affecting soil P transformation and bioavailability is still poorly understood. We studied the effects of straw (ST), biochar (BC) and Si-modified biochar (Si-BC) amendments on the available-P content and its fraction transformation in rice-paddy soils. Our results showed that these three soil amendments significantly increased the concentrations of both microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and microbial biomass-P (MBP) during the first rice season; by contrast, the effects of ST and BC application were relatively poor on acid-phosphatase (ACP) activity, which was increased by 24 % under ST and 14 % under BC. Soil total P concentrations did not differ significantly, although the concentration and percentage of each P-fraction were altered significantly among treatments. Although all three applications increase soil available-P concentration by promoting the transformation of organic-P (Po) components to inorganic-P (Pi), there are differences in the transformation efficiency of the soil P fraction between these amendments. Redundancy analysis results also showed significant clustering of soil P-fraction transformations after ST and BC treatments. Structural equation model analysis further indicated that all amendments regulated microbial processes by changing soil pH and dissolved organic carbon (DOC), thereby promoting soil P transformation and improving P efficiency. Sodium bicarbonate-extractable Po (NaHCO3-Po) contributed most to soil available-P under the different amendments. Compared to ST and Si-BC, BC application improved more soil microbial status and the transformation of soil unavailable-P into available-P, therefore the application of BC in rice fields is the most beneficial method to promote phosphorus use and production sustainability in rice. These findings helped to understand the effects of using industrial and agricultural waste (e.g. straw, biochar and Si-modified biochar) on soil P-fractions and so provided a reference for sustainable resource use and green production in rice-paddy ecosystems.