Determination of soil aggregate disintegration dynamics using laser diffraction

Clay Minerals ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Bieganowski ◽  
M. Ryżak ◽  
B. Witkowska-Walczak

AbstractA new practical and precise method for determining soil aggregate stability is described. Four air-dry aggregate fractions (<0.25, 0.25–0.5, 0.5–1.0 and 1.0–2.0 mm) were added to thoroughly stirred water in a Mastersizer 2000 laser diffractometer. The suspension obtained was passed directly through the measuring system. The dynamics of median (equivalent diameter d50) particle-size distribution decrease (interpolated with a logarithmic function) was assumed to be the measure of soil aggregate stability. In order to show the applicability of the new method, the results obtained (for selected and diverse soils) were compared with those from the wet sieving standard method. The main conclusion is that the proposed method is convenient and can be successfully used for the estimation of soil aggregate stability. Moreover, it has wider application because standard sieving methods are restricted to aggregates >0.25 mm whereas, with the use of the laser diffraction method, smaller aggregates can be measured. The energy delivered to the aggregates in the process of aggregate disintegration is more reproducible in the method described here. The method also provides an opportunity to verify that the soil aggregates are completely destroyed (lack of the changes of the median value shows the end of soil aggregate disintegration).

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1541
Author(s):  
Xiaolin Shen ◽  
Lili Wang ◽  
Qichen Yang ◽  
Weiming Xiu ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
...  

Our study aimed to provide a scientific basis for an appropriate tillage management of wheat-maize rotation system, which is beneficial to the sustainable development of agriculture in the fluvo-aquic soil areas in China. Four tillage treatments were investigated after maize harvest, including rotary tillage with straw returning (RT), deep ploughing with straw returning (DP), subsoiling with straw returning (SS), and no tillage with straw mulching (NT). We evaluated soil organic carbon (SOC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), permanganate oxidizable carbon (POXC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), and particulate organic carbon (POC) in bulk soil and soil aggregates with five particle sizes (>5 mm, 5–2 mm, 2–1 mm, 1–0.25 mm, and <0.25 mm) under different tillage managements. Results showed that compared with RT treatment, NT treatment not only increased soil aggregate stability, but also enhanced SOC, DOC, and POC contents, especially those in large size macroaggregates. DP treatment also showed positive effects on soil aggregate stability and labile carbon fractions (DOC and POXC). Consequently, we suggest that no tillage or deep ploughing, rather than rotary tillage, could be better tillage management considering carbon storage. Meanwhile, we implied that mass fractal dimension (Dm) and POXC could be effective indicators of soil quality, as affected by tillage managements.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisângela Viana Barbosa ◽  
Daniela de Fátima Pedroso ◽  
Nilton Curi ◽  
Marco Aurélio Carbone Carneiro

ABSTRACT Soil structure, which is defined by the arrangement of the particles and the porous space forming aggregates, is one of the most important properties of the soil. Among the biological factors that influence the formation and stabilization of soil aggregates, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are distinguished due to extrarradicular hyphae and glomalin production. In this context, the objective of this study was to evaluate different AMF (Acaulospora colombiana, Acaulospora longula, Acaulospora morrowiae, Paraglomus occultum and Gigaspora margarita) associated with Urochloa brizantha (A. Rich.) Stapf on soil aggregate stability. The study was conducted in a completely randomized design, using an Oxisol and autoclaved sand 2:1 (v/v), with seven treatments: five AMF; and treatments with plants without inoculation and with only the soil, with 5 replicates. The experiment was conducted during 180 days and the following variables were evaluated: mycelium total length (TML); production of easily extractable glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) in the soil and aggregate classes; stability of the dry and immersed in water aggregates through the mean geometric diameter (MGD) and the mean weighted diameter (MWD) of aggregates; and the soil aggregate stability index (ASI). It was observed that the inoculation favored soil aggregation, with a high incidence of A. colombiana, which presented the highest MGD, TML and GRSP production in the aggregates with Ø>2.0mm and for A. colombiana and A. morrowiae in the aggregates with Ø<0.105 mm, when compared to the treatment without inoculation. These results show that there is a distinction between the effects of different AMF on the formation and stability of soil aggregates.


2014 ◽  
Vol 955-959 ◽  
pp. 3566-3571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Wang ◽  
Zhuang Xiong ◽  
Wu Xian Yan ◽  
Yue Qun Qiu

The objective of this study was to investigate soil aggregate stability within landscape on hillslopes by intensive tillage. Traditional tillage by consecutive hoeing was performed 5 and 20 times on steeply sloping land of the Sichuan Basin, China, by using the methods of simulated tillage to analyze the impact of long-term tillage on soil aggregates at different slope positions. The dry-sieved method was used to determine distribution of aggregate size in the different landscape positions, and mean weight diameter (MWD) and geometric mean diameter (GMD) as indices of soil aggregate stability. The different times of tillage resulted in different soil aggregate distributions. The results showed that the MWD and GMD values of aggregates were significantly decreased (p< 0.05) after 20-tillage operation, compared with pre-tillage operation. The differences in distributions of MWD and GMD demonstrate that the choice of the tillage times can be an important factor in changing soil aggregate stability and productivity in steeply sloping fields.


Biologia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Radka Kodešová ◽  
Marcela Rohošková ◽  
Anna Žigová

AbstractSoil structure stability was studied in every diagnostic horizons of six soil types (Haplic Chernozem, Greyic Phaeozem, two Haplic Luvisols, Haplic Cambisol, Dystric Cambisol) using different techniques investigating various destruction mechanisms of soil aggregates. Soil aggregate stability, assessed by the index of water stable aggregates (WSA), varied depending on the organic matter content, clay content and pHKCl. The presence of clay and organic matter coatings and fillings, and presence of iron oxides in some soils increased stability of soil aggregates. On the other hand periodical tillage apparently decreased aggregate stability in the Ap horizons. Coefficients of aggregate vulnerability resulting from fast wetting (KV 1) and slow wetting (KV 2) tests showed similar trends of the soil aggregate stability as the WSA index, when studied for soils developed on the similar parent material. There was found close correlation between the WSA index and the KV 1 value, which depended also on the organic matter content, clay content and pHKCl. Less significant correlation was obtained between the WSA index and the KV 2 value, which depended on the organic matter content and clay content. Coefficients of vulnerability resulting from the shaking after pre-wetting test (KV 3) showed considerably different trends in comparison to the other tests due to the different factors affecting aggregate stability against the mechanical destruction. The KV 3 value depended mostly on cation exchange capacity, pHKCl and organic matter content.


SoilREns ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Betty Natalie Fitriatin ◽  
Muhammad Agi Pratama ◽  
Oviyanti Mulyani

Ultisols is a soil order with low available P. Phosphate Solubilizing Microbes is a group of microorganisms that has the ability to release P for plants. The aim of this experiment was to determine effect of phosphate solubilizing microbes and P fertilizer on soil aggregate stability, PSF population and yield of maize (Zea mays L.) on Ultisols. This research was conducted from May 2016 to August 2016 at Ciparanje, Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Padjadjaran. This research was arranged in Randomized Block Design (RBD), consisted of 9 treatments with 3 replications. The treatments were 100 kg ha-1 of SP-36 fertilizer, 50 kg ha-1 of biofertilizer, as well as combination of SP-36 fertilizer (50% and 100%) with the dose of biofertilizer (50%, 100% and 150%). This experiment showed that the combination of biofertilizer and P fertilizer gave significant effect on the population of PSF and yield of maize, but not for stability of soil aggregates. The application of SP-36 50 kg ha-1 and 50 kg ha-1 PSM combination gave higher population of PSF and yield of maize.Keywords:  Biofertilizer, maize, phosphate- solubizing fungi, aggregate stability, Ultisols


1969 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-133
Author(s):  
R. Pérez-Escolar ◽  
M. A. Lugo-López

Data are presented here on the effect of the synthetic soil conditioners Krilium (formulations 6 and 9) and Aerotil on the aggregate stability of Juncos clay and on the yield of potatoes and string beans. The conditioners used were formulations 6 and 9 of Krilium, dry form, and Aerotil, wettable flakes, each at rates of 900, 1,800, and 3,600 pounds to the acre. At all levels Krilium 6 showed the highest aggregate-stabilizing capacity. Significant and highly significant differences were obtained between the stability of soil aggregates in the check plots and in all conditioner-treated plots, except where Krilium 9 was used at the minimum level. The production of potatoes of the Kennebeck variety was significantly increased by conditioner treatment, except at the low levels of both Krilium formulations and the intermediate level of formulation 6. Stringless beans did not respond to the increased stability of soil aggregates, which stresses the importance of recognizing crop differences in assessing soil characteristics.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Józefowska ◽  
Magdalena Ryżak ◽  
Justyna Sokołowska ◽  
Karolina Woźnica ◽  
Tomasz Zaleski ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;Keywords: soil texture, aggregate stability, organic additives, earthworms, microbial activity,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lubbers et al. (2017) emphasised that earthworm by creating macroaggregates increase the amount of organic carbon in the soil. Such macroaggregates contain particulate organic matter, fungal hyphae, or roots, and afterwards, during the decomposition of macroaggregates, the organic matter becomes more resistant to microbial attack (Pulleman et al. 2005). Earthworms, through feeding and burrowing, are important elements in C cycling (Curry and Schmidt 2007). However, the type of introduced organic matter (Huang et al. 2018) and abiotic factors (Six et al. 2004) are equally important in creating stable organic-mineral components as well as the presence of earthworms.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A six-month experiment was carried out to test how the soil structure (the stability of soil aggregates) behave under the influence of various organic additives. For each soil, except the reference samples, one of the listed additives was introduced, i.e. straw, straw with fulvic acid, peat (garden soil), compost, compost with active bacteria cultures and straw with fulvic acids, humus and active bacteria cultures. The research was carried out on soils with four types of texture, i.e. sandy, loamy, silty and clayey soil. In the project, three different species of earthworms commonly occurred in Polish soils were a structure-forming factor (&lt;em&gt;Apporectodea rosea, Apporectodea calliginosa&lt;/em&gt; and&lt;em&gt; Dendrobena rubillus&lt;/em&gt;). After the experiment, the amount of organic carbon in the soil, dissolved organic carbon, humus forms and microbiological activity of the soil were evaluated. The stability of the soil aggregates was determined using two methods: the sieve method (Kemper and Rosenau 1986) and laser diffraction method (Bieganowski et al. 2018),&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Based on this research it was noted that the aggregate stability is correlated mainly with soil texture. The applied additives had the most significant influence on the transformation of organic carbon in the soil. Soil organic carbon, which may be incorporated into the soil in the form of the organic-mineral colloids, is an essential element in the balance of the carbon in nature. Among the tested additives, organic carbon from compost, peat and compost with active bacteria cultures was in the highest amount associated with fine earth particles (about 36-48%). For comparison, only less than 8.5% of the organic carbon from the straw was incorporated into the mineral part of the soil.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two methods to measures aggregate stability are not comparable for sandy soils. In the wet-sieving method the sand fraction higher than 0.25 mm pretend to be stable aggregates.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The study was financed by The National Science Centre, Poland, grant No. 2017/01/X/ST10/00777, statistical analysis was made based the knowledge and skills &lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;achieved during the training: organized as part of the project: Integrated Program of the University of Agriculture in Krak&amp;#243;w, which is co-financed by the European Union (POWR.03.05.00-00-z222/17)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;


Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 951
Author(s):  
Huayan Zhang ◽  
Ling’an Niu ◽  
Kelin Hu ◽  
Jinmin Hao ◽  
Fan Li ◽  
...  

Agricultural management, such as tillage and straw-returning, affect soil fertility and nutrient cycling in agroecosystems. With the increasing food demand and challenges imposed by climate change, these effects on soil fertility need to be closely monitored, so that short-term agricultural intensification should not threaten the long-term productivity of the land. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to examine the long-term effects of different management practices on soil aggregate stability and associated organic carbon (OC) and nitrogen (N) over a 33-year period in the croplands of the North China Plain. Bulk soils from the surface and subsurface layers were fractionated using the wet sieving approach. The results showed that the silt + clay (SC) fractions (<0.053 mm) were predominant, accounting for 32–56% of the mass at the 0–20 cm depth, and accounting for 41–55% of the mass at the 20–40 cm depth. Additionally, long-term (33 years) no-tillage management and straw-returning at different application rates increased the mass of large soil macroaggregates (LMA), the LMA- and macroaggregate-associated OC content, but decreased the SC-associated OC content. Mineral N and P fertilizers had a minor effect on the stabilization of soil aggregates. The treatment with straw significantly increased the mean weight diameter (MWD) and geometric mean diameter (GWD), compared with the treatment without straw. Our results indicate that carefully regulated management practices would enhance soil aggregate stability, associated OC and N content in the intensive agroecosystem.


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