Soil K forms and K budget in integrated crop-livestock systems in subtropical paddy fields

Abstract

Diversified farming systems is a challenge in lowland soils around the world. In Southern Brazil, integrated crop-livestock systems (ICLS) have been used for grain crops and livestock production under no-till. However, their impacts on soil K dynamics are still poorly explored. The aim of this study was to quantify the K forms in the soil and the K budget after 66 months of different flooded rice production systems under no-till ICLS in a subtropical paddy field. Four production systems were established in 2013: (i) flooded rice monocropping under conventional tillage (CT) and winter fallow (R-CT); (ii) no-tillage (NT) flooded rice monocropping with ryegrass pasture in winter (R-ICLS); (iii) NT flooded rice and soybean rotation in the summer and ryegrass pasture in winter (RS-ICLS), and (iv) NT flooded rice, soybean, maize and stapf grass rotation in the summer period and ryegrass and clover pasture in the winter (RSM-ICLS). In 2018, soil samples were taken at the 0–10, 10–20 and 20–30 cm soil layers. Exchangeable potassium (K), non-exchangeable K, structural K, and total K were evaluated. Exchangeable K was not affected by the treatments. The higher the difference between inputs and outputs of K in the systems evaluated, the higher was the content of structural and total K in the soil. However, the K budget in the system was not sufficient to fully explain the variation in the non-exchangeable K content in the soil. Comparing the systems with the same frequency of flooded rice cultivation, the difference between inputs and outputs of K was about 2.3 times higher in the R-ICLS system (830 kg ha−1 of K) compared to R-CT (366 kg ha−1), which increase in 70 % the concentration of non-exchangeable K in the 0–30 cm soil layer (622 and 361 mg kg−1 in the R-ICLS and R-CT, respectively). In the systems where flooded rice rotates with rainfed crops (RS-ICLS and RSM-ICLS), the drying cycles resulted in K fixation with higher energy, turning the surplus of K added via fertilization into structural forms. These results indicate that lowland soils cultivated with K fertilization rates greater than the export of K can result in a fixation of K, decreasing its availability in the short-medium term. Moreover, it strongly emphasizes that adequate K fertilization in lowland soils with 2:1 clayminerals should focus on the reposition of exported K in order to prevent temporary fixation of K by fixation on structural forms.