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Predicting the degree of phosphorus saturation using the ammonium acetate–EDTA soil test
Author(s) -
Houben D.,
Meunier C.,
Pereira B.,
Sonnet Ph.
Publication year - 2011
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.1475-2743.2011.00353.x
Subject(s) - ammonium oxalate , soil water , topsoil , chemistry , soil test , oxalate , environmental chemistry , phosphorus , saturation (graph theory) , extraction (chemistry) , ammonium acetate , ammonium , soil science , mathematics , environmental science , inorganic chemistry , chromatography , high performance liquid chromatography , organic chemistry , combinatorics
As a result of the important role played by phosphorus (P) in surface water eutrophication, the susceptibility of soils to release P requires evaluation. The degree of phosphorus saturation, assessed by oxalate extraction (DPS ox ), has been used as an indicator. However, most laboratories do not include DPS ox in routine soil tests because of cost and time. This study evaluates the suitability of the ammonium acetate extraction in the presence of EDTA (AAEDTA), the standard soil test P (STP) in Wallonia (Southern Belgium), to predict DPS ox ; we also compared it with the Mehlich 3 extraction. Ninety‐three topsoil samples were collected in agricultural soils throughout Wallonia. Good correlations were found between the AAEDTA and the Mehlich 3 methods for P, Fe and Al ( r = 0.85, 0.77 and 0.86, respectively). An exponential relationship was found between P AAEDTA and DPS ox . Results of principal component analysis and regression demonstrated that STP can be used to predict DPS ox ( r = 0.93) after logarithmic transformation. Soil test Al was also a good indicator of the P sorption capacity (PSC ox ) of soils ( r = 0.86). Including the clay fraction in regression equations only slightly improved the prediction of PSC ox ( r = 0.90), while other readily available data (such as pH or organic carbon) did not significantly improve either DPS ox or PSC ox predictions.