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Nitrification and Denitrification in Cattle Manure‐Amended Soil
Author(s) -
Guenzi W. D.,
Beard W. E.,
Watanabe F. S.,
Olsen S. R.,
Porter L. K.
Publication year - 1978
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/jeq1978.00472425000700020009x
Subject(s) - manure , soil water , tonne , nitrification , sorghum , denitrification , fertilizer , chemistry , environmental science , zoology , agronomy , nitrogen , environmental chemistry , soil science , biology , organic chemistry
Dry cattle manure was mixed with soil at a rate of 45 and 90 metric tons/ha and amended with K 15 NO 3 , and ( 15 NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 in separate treatments. The greenhouse experiment included an uncropped and a sorghum ( Sorghum vulgure Pers.) treatment. Soil atmosphere was analyzed for CO 2 , N 2 , O 2 + Ar, N 2 O, and enriched 15 N 2 . The energy‐rich manure created a high biological oxygen demand and caused low O 2 and high CO 2 concentrations in the soil environment. Evidence for denitrification was obtained by the presence of N 2 O and 15 N enriched N 2 ‐in the soil gases for the manure treatments amended with 15 NO 3 − and 15 NH 4 + . The 15 N enriched N 2 in the soil gases in the uncropped soil decreased to background levels after 10 days in the NO 3 − ‐amended manured soils, whereas 15 N 2 enrichment from 15 NH 4 + ‐amended manured soils existed at 39 days. The recovery of NO 3 − ‐ 15 N in the uncropped soils was 90.2% without manure, 9.4% with 45, and 8.1% with 90 metric tons/ha of manure. Recovery of NH 4 + ‐ 15 N in the uncropped soil was 92.2% without manure, 60.3% with 45, and 57.0% with 90 metric tons/ha of manure. Higher concentrations of added fertilizer N were recovered in the cropped system. In this study, where manure was mixed thoroughly with soil, water was added daily to field capacity, and O 2 concentrations were never below 3.1%, denitrification must have occurred in anaerobic microsites in a predominantly aerobic system. The results for the NH 4 + ‐manure treatment demonstrated that both nitrification and denitrification occurred simultaneously.