Abstract
Aluminium phytotoxicity is considered the main limiting factor for crop productivity in agricultural acid soils. Liming is a common practice used to improve acidic soil properties, but an appropriate liming material is essential for both agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. A long-term field experiment with two liming amendments (dolomitic limestone and limestone) was developed during 10 years to determine the changes in soil acidity and assess the effects on crop (rye) yields. Although the adverse effects of the soil acidity conditions were alleviated with both amendments tested, dolomitic limestone was the most effective in the short- and long-term period. In terms of the saturation of exchange complex, dolomitic limestone had a better efficiency, likely based on its rate of dissolution. No significant changes in soil organic matter and exchangeable potassium levels between the treatments tested were found. Both liming materials significantly increased the rye total biomass, but interestingly, significant correlations were showed between tissue levels of magnesium and biomass production, but not between the latter and calcium. The increases in rye biomass production compared with control soils at the end of the research were the following: dolomitic limestone, 47%, and limestone, 32%. A link between an increase in magnesium bioavailability and biomass production was found, as well as between magnesium rye content and total, spike and stem biomass. Hence, it could conceivably be hypothesized that since magnesium is crucial for the transport of assimilates from source leaves to sink organs, alleviating its deficiency leads to avoiding the reducing growth rate of sink organs. Although further investigations are needed to gain a better understanding of liming on the biological, chemical and physical soil properties in the long term, our research provides support for the conceptual premise that an appropriate selection of liming material is crucial for the productivity of acid soils.
Highlights
Soil acidity naturally develops because of different factors of soil formation acting alone or in combination: parent materials low in bases, and climates favouring strong leaching [1]
With the aim to evaluate where the significant differences between the T means are, a further comparison between all possible variable pairs was assessed by post hoc methods, for both D and Y individually
As we found in our previous work [2], Dolomitic limestone (DL) and L reactivity, which is dependent on the hardness and the particles size [18], can be behind this result since the ability of the soil pH increasing and the base saturation levels are strongly related with DL and L reactivity
Summary
Soil acidity naturally develops because of different factors of soil formation acting alone or in combination: parent materials low in bases, and climates favouring strong leaching [1]. Since liming is mainly practiced to raise the soil pH, most studies have focused on plant productivity, amelioration of soil acidification, Al phytotoxicity and exchangeable cations [5]. The liming material selection in traditional agronomy management, to correct soil acidity and to improve agronomic soil productivity, must be based on several issues in addition to their neutralizing values or calcium carbonate equivalent (CCE). Other constraints, such as mineral nutrient deficiencies associated with soil acidity (availability of the macronutrients Ca, Mg and potassium (K), as well as the micronutrients molybdenum (Mo) and boron (B) that are curtailed in acid soils [7]), must be taken into account
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