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Major Procedural Discrepancies in Soil Extracted Nitrate Levels and Nitrogen Isotopic Values
Author(s) -
Lindau Charles W.,
Spalding Roy F.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
groundwater
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1745-6584
pISSN - 0017-467X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6584.1984.tb01399.x
Subject(s) - nitrate , vadose zone , nitrogen , chemistry , leaching (pedology) , soil water , environmental chemistry , extraction (chemistry) , tracer , isotopes of nitrogen , volume (thermodynamics) , soil science , environmental science , chromatography , physics , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , nuclear physics
Preliminary vadose zone nitrate extraction experiments have revealed the extractant (2N KCl) volume affects the determination of nitrate and its nitrogen isotope ratio. In five cores, extractable NO 3 ‐N concentrations increased an average of 1.7 times after the soil‐to‐extractant ratio was increased from 1:1 to 1:10. An increased extractant volume resulted in a large positive shift of stable nitrogen values (δ 15 N), which averaged +6.2%. An underestimation of available NO 3 ‐N for leaching and transport through the vadose zone and a biased source interpretation from the δ 15 N values probably would occur if a procedure which leads to incomplete extraction of nitrate is used.