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Effectiveness of Biochar and Elemental Sulfur for Sustaining Maize Production in Arid soils

Article

Last updated: 07 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

Soil fertility and plant nutrition

Abstract

Sandy soils represent most of the arable lands in Egypt. These soils are infertile and therefore incorporating organic products such as biochar in their surface soil layers are recommended to improve their productivity. Yet, biochar is of alkaline nature which may diminish the availability of many soil nutrients needed for proper plant growth. Thus, the current study investigates the impacts of adding elemental sulfur together with biochar to lessen the negative consequences of normal biochar on productivity of maize plants grown on a poor fertile light-textured soil. Also, acid modified biochars with either sulfuric or phosphoric acids were used herein to attain this goal. To attain this goal, a pot experiment of a randomized block design was conducted, comprising 2- factors: (1) 3-types of biochar (non acidified (BC), acid modified biochar with sulfuric acid (SMBA) and acid modified biochar with phosphoric acid (PMBA)) mixed with a soil (loamy sand, 97% sand) at a rate of 10 g kg-1 as well as the non-amended-control. (2) elemental S applied at rates of 0, 2 and 4 g kg-1 soil. All pots received 1.6 g kg-1 compost then left to equilibrate for two weeks. Later, maize seeds were planted for 60 days. Results reveal that maize dry weights and heights were significantly enhanced owing to application of acidified-biochars; while the corresponding increases owing to application of non-acidified biochar were almost significant. Such increases were correlated significantly and positively with both Olsen-P and AB-DTPA-Zn. On the other hand, application of S recorded no direct significant impacts on maize growth parameters, nevertheless it decreased significantly soil-pH, especially with increasing the dose of application and this in turn upraised extractable-AB-DTPA-extractable-Fe and Zn. Interactions between non-acidified biochar and S recorded further positive improvements in nutrient availability and plant growth versus applying each soil; yet such increases were still below the ones recorded for acidified biochars. The environmental impacts for using these additives on global warming threats were also considered in this study via calculating C-cycle feedback and all estimated values were positive. This indicates that sequestered C was probably higher than its emissions. Future perspectives are needed to investigate the efficiencies of using these additives under field conditions for at least two successive seasons while evaluating the economic and environmental outcomes for these additives.

DOI

10.21608/ejss.2024.324620.1875

Keywords

acid acidified biochars, Maize, Arid soils, soil pH, soil carbon balance, available nutrients, Elemental sulfur

Authors

First Name

Ahmed

Last Name

Abuzaid

MiddleName

Saeed

Affiliation

Soils and Water Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Benha University, Egypt

Email

ahmed.abuzaid@fagr.bu.edu.eg

City

Benha

Orcid

0000-0002-1627-6250

First Name

Mohamed

Last Name

Abdel-Salam

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Benha University, Faculty of Agriculture, Soils and Water department

Email

mohamedalysalam@yahoo.com

City

-

Orcid

0000-0002-9607-4439

First Name

Mohamed

Last Name

Abbas

MiddleName

H.H.

Affiliation

Benha University, Faculty of Agriculture, Soils and Water department

Email

mohamed.abbas@fagr.bu.edu.eg

City

Benha

Orcid

0000-0002-1905-1241

First Name

Fatma

Last Name

Khalil

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Soils and Water Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Benha University, Egypt

Email

fatma.wahed2328@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Ahmed

Last Name

Abdelhafez

MiddleName

A

Affiliation

Soils and water department, Faculty of Agriculture, New valley University

Email

ahmed.aziz@agr.nvu.edu.eg

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

65

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

51049

Issue Date

2025-03-01

Receive Date

2024-10-07

Publish Date

2025-03-01

Page Start

163

Page End

177

Print ISSN

0302-6701

Online ISSN

2357-0369

Link

https://ejss.journals.ekb.eg/article_393600.html

Detail API

http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=393600

Order

12

Type

Original Article

Type Code

19

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Soil Science

Publication Link

https://ejss.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Effectiveness of Biochar and Elemental Sulfur for Sustaining Maize Production in Arid soils

Details

Type

Article

Created At

23 Dec 2024