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Isotopic Tracer Techniques for Identification of Sources of Nitrate Pollution
Author(s) -
Edwards A. P.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
journal of environmental quality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1537-2537
pISSN - 0047-2425
DOI - 10.2134/jeq1973.00472425000200030018x
Subject(s) - nitrate , fertilizer , ammonium nitrate , natural abundance , abundance (ecology) , replicate , ammonium , environmental chemistry , environmental science , tracer , pollution , chemistry , agronomy , ecology , mathematics , biology , mass spectrometry , statistics , physics , organic chemistry , chromatography , nuclear physics
A comparison was made of the use of natural variations in 15 N‐abundance vs. 15 N‐enriched and 15 N‐depleted fertilizers in determining the contribution of inorganic ammonium fertilizers to the NO 3 ‐N extracted from a Webster soil following a 30C aerobic incubation for 2.5 weeks. The natural abundance approach was unsatisfactory even in this simplified system and its lack of success is shown to be due in part to replicate variability. The fluctuations in 15 N‐content of the nitrate from carefully replicated samples of each fertilizer treatment were of the same order of magnitude as the mean difference between the 15 N‐contents of natural fertilizer‐N and the soil‐derived NO 3 ‐N. Therefore, the use of labeled fertilizers with 15 N‐contents substantially higher or lower than the natural abundance figure is the only valid approach to the measurement of fertilizer contribution to the NO 3 ‐N appearing in tile drains under field condition.