Substitution of mineral fertilizers with biogas digestate plus biochar increases physically stabilized soil carbon but not crop biomass in a field trial

Various organic amendments are scrutinized as potential agricultural management strategies to ensure soil productivity while mitigating climate change due to the accumulation of soil organic matter (OM). The objectives of this experiment were to study the effects of biochar and biogas digestate vers...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Science of the total environment 2019-08, Vol.680, p.181-189
Main Authors: Greenberg, Isabel, Kaiser, Michael, Gunina, Anna, Ledesma, Philipp, Polifka, Steven, Wiedner, Katja, Mueller, Carsten W, Glaser, Bruno, Ludwig, Bernard
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Various organic amendments are scrutinized as potential agricultural management strategies to ensure soil productivity while mitigating climate change due to the accumulation of soil organic matter (OM). The objectives of this experiment were to study the effects of biochar and biogas digestate versus mineral fertilizer on crop aboveground biomass as well as fractions and mineralization of soil organic carbon (SOC). Samples of a sandy Cambisol were taken 14 months after establishment of a field experiment in Germany. Treatments included application of equal nitrogen in the form of mineral fertilizer or liquid biogas digestate without biochar (B ), with 1 Mg biochar ha season for two growing seasons (B ), or with 40 Mg biochar ha application (B ). Soil fractionation in water separated water-extractable and free particulate (fPOM) OM, followed by sonification and sieving to isolate occluded particulate (oPOM) and 
ISSN:0048-9697
1879-1026
DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.051