Co-application of a biosolids product and biochar to two coarse-textured pasture soils influenced microbial N cycling genes and potential for N leaching

Abstract Co-application of biochar and biosolids to soil has potential to mitigate N leaching due to physical and chemical properties of biochar. Changes in N cycling pathways in soil induced by co-application of biological amendments could further mitigate N loss, but this is largely unexplored. Th...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sanjutha Shanmugam, Sasha N. Jenkins, Bede S. Mickan, Noraini Md Jaafar, Falko Mathes, Zakaria M. Solaiman, Lynette K. Abbott
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/c51941fca6a0413895cf52e05cd6c195
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Abstract Co-application of biochar and biosolids to soil has potential to mitigate N leaching due to physical and chemical properties of biochar. Changes in N cycling pathways in soil induced by co-application of biological amendments could further mitigate N loss, but this is largely unexplored. The aim of this study was to determine whether co-application of a biochar and a modified biosolids product to three pasture soils differing in texture could alter the relative abundance of N cycling genes in soil sown with subterranean clover. The biosolids product contained lime and clay and increased subterranean clover shoot biomass in parallel with increases in soil pH and soil nitrate. Its co-application with biochar similarly increased plant growth and soil pH with a marked reduction in nitrate in two coarse textured soils but not in a clayey soil. While application of the biosolids product altered in silico predicted N cycling functional genes, there was no additional change when applied to soil in combination with biochar. This supports the conclusion that co-application of the biochar and biosolids product used here has potential to mitigate loss of N in coarse textured soils due to N adsoption by the biochar and independently of microbial N pathways.