Abstract
Organic waste materials like crop residues, well-decomposed cow dung, composts, and other rural and urban wastes are considered highly useful resources in enhancing soil fertility and also in build-up of soil organic matter. Organic matter decomposition provides plant nutrients in soil, which in turn increases crop productivity. Availability of nutrients and nitrogen (N) and phosphorus from organic waste materials is dependent upon the nature of organic residues, climatic conditions, and soil moisture activity. Keeping these factors in view, the present investigation was undertaken to study the transformation of N from different organic waste materials in two contrasting soils from an eastern India, subtropical region. The results showed that the amounts of ammoniacal-N (NH4-N), nitrate-N (NO3-N), hydrolysable N (HL-N), and nonhydrolysable (NHL-N) were increased for up to 60 days of soil submergence and increased further with the increase (1% by weight of soil) of organic residue application. Considering the effect of various organic waste materials, it was found that the amounts of NH4-N, NO3-N, HL-N, and NHL-N were higher with the application of groundnut hull as compared to wheat straw and potato skin, which may be due to relatively narrow carbon:N ratio of groundnut (22:43) than that of wheat straw (62:84) and potato skin (71:32); however, the results showed that the release of NH4-N, NO3-N, HL-N, and NHL-N was in the order of groundnut hull > wheat straw > potato skin.
Highlights
Different types of organic waste materials, like crop residues or rural and urban wastes, are useful in augmenting soil fertility and increasing crop productivity
Most of the Indian subtropical soils are deficient in organic carbon (C) as well as nitrogen (N). Application of these organic waste materials in soils, helps the building up of plant nutrient status, especially N; such build-up of soil fertility status depends upon the nature of waste materials added and the dynamics of mineralisation immobilisation of nutrients (N, phosphorus [P], and sulphur[S]) in soils being mediated by soil microorganisms[1,2,3]
Dhillon et al.[7] reported that the total N, HL-N, and nonhydrolysable N (NHL-N) correlated significantly with the yield and N uptake by rice
Summary
Different types of organic waste materials, like crop residues or rural and urban wastes, are useful in augmenting soil fertility and increasing crop productivity. Bremner[5] reported that more than 95% of the total N was in organic combination, a portion of which, on hydrolysis, is liberated as ammonium (10 to 25%), a greater portion as amino acids (25 to 40%), and a smaller fraction (1 to 5%) as amino sugars. Dhillon et al.[7] reported that the total N, HL-N, and nonhydrolysable N (NHL-N) correlated significantly with the yield and N uptake by rice Considering some of these factors, the present study was undertaken with an objective to investigate the influence of different organic materials on the transformation of N in soils of the Indian subtropics
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