Sugarcane bagasse biochar: Suitable amendment for inland aquaculture soils

Abstract

The salt-affected soils cover vast area in more than 100 countries and increasingly decrease the arable land. It may lead to the global food insecurity that is needed to be solved urgently. Concurrently, these degraded areas are suitable for inland saline aquaculture on the conditions of improvement in sediment characteristics. In this connection, an experiment was conducted for 60 days to study changes in physicochemical properties of inland saline aquaculture pond sediments through biochar application. The biochar prepared from dried sugarcane bagasse at 500°C with 33% biomass recovery was characterized for its physicochemical properties and applied over surface and by mixing with the sediment. There was a significant (p < .05) increase in organic carbon (3.82%), available-P (2.13%), available-K (18%), Ca (5.62%), Mg (14%) and water-holding capacity (1.8 times), and decrease in pH (0.41 unit), EC (17%) and bulk density (7%) when biochar (18 t/ha) was mixed with sediment (T2 treatment), whereas increase and decrease in CEC (59%) and available-N (1.01 times), respectively, when biochar (18 t/ha) were applied over sediment surface (T4 treatment). Thus, mixing of sugarcane bagasse biochar with sediment at 18 t/ha is recommended for the improvement of soil characteristics in saline soils for aquaculture through this study. Furthermore, the SEM and FT-IR analysis of treatments showed that sediment aggregation and functional group characteristics improved over a short period of incubation along with microbial biomass.