Microbial Response to Charcoal Amendments of Highly Weathered Soils and Amazonian Dark Earths in Central Amazonia — Preliminary Results

Abstract

The abundance of charcoal and highly aromatic humic substances in Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) suggests that residues of incomplete combustion of organic material (black carbon, pyrogenic carbon, charcoal) are a key factor for the persistence of soil organic matter (SOM) in ADE soils which contain up to 70 times more black carbon than the surrounding soils (Glaser et al. 2001). 13C-NMR studies showed that the only chemical structures that appear to survive decomposition processes are mostly due to finely divided charcoal (Skjemstad 2001). Generally, in highly weathered tropical soils, SOM and especially charcoal play a key role in maintaining soil fertility (Glaser et al. 2001, 2002).KeywordsMicrobial BiomassArbuscular Mycorrhizal FungusBlack CarbonRice StrawMineral FertilizerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.