Premium
Nitrogen transformations in a peaty soil improved for pastoral agriculture
Author(s) -
Isabella B.L.,
Hopkins D.W.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
soil use and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.709
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1475-2743
pISSN - 0266-0032
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-2743.1994.tb00469.x
Subject(s) - lime , mineralization (soil science) , gleysol , agronomy , environmental science , denitrification , soil water , soil organic matter , nitrogen fixation , nitrogen , chemistry , soil science , biology , paleontology , organic chemistry
. Microbial transformations and chemical distribution of N were compared in two upland stagnohumic gley soils at the same site. In 1981 one soil was improved for more intensive agriculture by lime and fertilizer applications and reseeding with a grass/clover mixture. The other soil (referred to here as unimproved) was also reseeded in 1981, but no lime was added and the sward has subsequently reverted to rough grazing land. Improvement resulted in greater soil microbial activity. The improved soil showed greater rates of denitrification, net N immobilization and N fixation (acetylene reduction) and contained more microbial biomass N than the unimproved soil. However, no major differences in the distribution of organic N fractions were detected. This indicates that a large amount of the soil N present before improvement did not undergo mineralization and remained unavailable to plants.