The effects of nitrogen fertilizer form on the plant availability of phosphate from soil, phosphate rock and mono-calcium phosphate

Abstract

A glasshouse trial using lettuce as the test crop, and laboratory incubations were used to evaluate the influence of various nitrogen fertilizers on the availability of phosphate from an unfertilized loamy sand soil and from the same soil fertilized with Sechura phosphate rock or monocalcium phosphate. The order in which nitrogen fertilizer form increased plant yield and P uptake from soil alone and from soil fertilized with the rock was ammonium sulphate > sulphurised urea > ammonium nitrate > urea > potassium nitrate. For each rock application (both 30 and 60 mg/pot) and for soil alone, increased P uptake by the plant correlated well with decreased soil pH. In soil fertilized with the soluble P form, monocalcium phosphate, the form of the nitrogen fertilizer had little effect on plant P uptake. Subsequent laboratory incubation studies showed that increased dissolution of soil-P or Sechura phosphate rock did not occur until acidity, generated by nitrification or sulphur oxidation of the fertilizer materials, had lowered soil pH to below 5.5. A sequential phosphate fractionation procedure was used to show that in soils treated with the acidifying nitrogen fertilizers, ammonium sulphate and urea, there was considerable release of Sechura phosphate rock P to the soil, amounting to 42% and 27% of the original rock P added, respectively.