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Inorganic Phosphorus in Calcareous Rockland Soils of the Bahamas
Author(s) -
Taylor Robert W.,
Woods Jonathan
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
soil science society of america journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1435-0661
pISSN - 0361-5995
DOI - 10.2136/sssaj1981.03615995004500040011x
Subject(s) - soil water , adsorption , fractionation , chemistry , phosphorus , calcareous , extraction (chemistry) , environmental chemistry , distilled water , langmuir , mineralogy , geology , soil science , chromatography , organic chemistry , paleontology
The phosphorus (P) status of cultivated and forest calcareous “rockland” soils of the Bahamas was investigated to acquire information on available P, forms of inorganic P, and P adsorption maxima. Available P was extracted by four methods: Bray P‐1, 0.5 M NaHCO 3 , 0.01 M CaCl 2 , and distilled‐deionized H 2 O. Soil P was fractionated according to the Chang and Jackson procedure, and Langmuir P adsorption maximum was determined by the method of Olsen and Watanabe for soils. For cultivated soils the order for amount of P removed by the extractants was generally NaHCO 3 > Bray > H 2 O > CaCl 2 . The pattern for forest soils, having less available P, was NaHCO 3 > H 2 O > CaCl 2 > Bray. Phosphorus fractionation data of selected soils indicated that 55.7 to 99.9% of the inorganic P was in the Ca‐P fraction. Correlation analysis between P fractions and available P revealed that all four extraction methods were positively correlated only with the Ca‐P fraction. Most of the adsorption maxima (computed from region I of the isotherms) for cultivated and forest soils were in the upper medium range. The Langmuir P adsorption constant, K 1 , related to the energy of adsorption, was generally smaller for cultivated soils, suggesting that P, being more loosely bound to these soil surfaces, would be more available to plants. Some fine‐textured forest soils had very high K 1 values, ranging from 52 × 10 4 to 222 × 10 4 liters/mole. The implication is that these soils will require heavy fertilizer P applications to adequately supply crops with P when cultivated initially.