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A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF METHODS OF ESTIMATING SOIL ORGANIC PHOSPHATE
Author(s) -
HANCE R. J.,
ANDERSON G.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
journal of soil science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.244
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2389
pISSN - 0022-4588
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2389.1962.tb00700.x
Subject(s) - extraction (chemistry) , soil water , phosphate , chemistry , ignition system , hydrolysis , alkali soil , loss on ignition , calcareous soils , environmental chemistry , environmental science , chromatography , soil science , organic chemistry , thermodynamics , physics
Summary Organic phosphate values for thirty‐four Scottish surface soils were obtained by an ignition method, by two standard extraction methods, and by a modified extraction procedure designed to decrease hydrolysis of acid labile phosphate esters. The extraction method of Saunders and Williams tended to be superior to that of Mehta et al. with acid soils, and inferior with calcareous soils, although in many cases the values obtained are similar. A modification of the Mehta method, involving extraction of the soil with alkali before as well as after acid treatment, caused less hydrolysis than the standard method with acid soils, and gave the highest average values for the soils as a whole. Attempts to increase the efficiency of the standard extraction procedures by varying the nature of the acid pre‐treatments were unsuccessful. Ignition values are usually greater than the highest extraction values, but in more than half the soils the differences are small and unimportant. Because there is no direct evidence to show that ignition gives results which are erroneously high, and since the ignition procedure is rapid and easy to perform, it is considered to be the most useful for the general analysis of Scottish soils.