The assessment of available manganese and aluminium status in acid soils under subterranean clover pastures of various ages

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Three methods of estimating available manganese and aluminium status in acid soils were compared on three groups of soils from the Pejar district near Goulburn, New South Wales in which differences in pH had been brought about by different periods under subterranean clover pasture. Managanese extracted by 0.01 M calcium chloride gave the best correlation with the manganese concentration in rape and subterranean clover grown in pot culture, and provided the best index of available manganese. Soil solution manganese was inferior to CaCl2-extractable manganese and was more difficult to determine. Extraction with neutral ammonium acetate was unsatisfactory because this reagent overestimated available forms of manganese in soils containing high levels of reactive manganese. Aluminium extracted by 0.01 M CaCl2 was well correlated with exchangeable aluminium and with percentage aluminium saturation of the effective cation exchange capacity. None of the three measures of aluminium status alone was an effective index for predicting lime response by rape on these soils because both manganese and aluminium status were involved in this response. These three parameters were equally effective in multiple regressions for yield responses of rape to lime. Because of its relative ease of determination, CaCl2 extraction is preferred as a practical measure of aluminium status. Aluminium interacted with and increased the toxic effects of manganese in rape. Thus CaCl2-extractable manganese alone only provided a satisfactory index of a 'critical' value for manganese toxicity in rape for soils low in available aluminium. Subterranean clover was only slightly affected by aluminium and manganese levels in these soils, and manganese toxicity symptoms were only observed on soils containing 50 ppm or more CaCl2-extractable manganese. Nodulation failure in pots occurred in all soils with pH below 5.2 (water) or below 4.3 in CaCl2, whereas nodulation was normal when these soils were treated with CaCO3 to raise the pH to 5.8-6.0 (water). With one exception nodulation appeared adequate at field sites from which soils showing nodulation failure in the glasshouse had been collected.