Kongcao Xiaoa Jianming Xua
Caixian Tangb Jiabao Zhangc Philip C. Brookesa. Differences in carbon and nitrogen mineralization in soils of differing initial pH induced by electrokinesis and receiving crop residue amendments.Soil Biology and BiochemistryVolume 67 December 2013 Pages 70–84
Abstract
Initial soil pH has been reported to have a great impact on the decomposition of added organic materials and hence to determine the direction and magnitude of subsequent soil pH changes. However most previous investigations have been conducted on different soil types differing in initial pH and other soil properties. Here we investigated the effects of initial soil pH on the subsequent soil pH and N mineralization changes caused by addition of crop residues to two soils (a Paleudalf and a Plinthudult) with different pHs induced by treatment with direct electric current. This produced pH gradients of 6.50–3.20 and 6.74–3.81 respectively. Three typical field crop residues differing in C-N ratio i.e. rice straw C-N = 42 canola residue C-N = 36 and Chinese milk vetch C-N = 14 (vetch) were incubated with the soils for 102 days. With both soils total CO2 fluxes differed between the type of added crop residues with vetch > canola residue > rice straw and decreased with decreasing initial soil pH. The incorporation of