Adsorption and precipitation reactions often dictate the availability of phosphorus in soil environments. Tripolyphosphate (TPP) is considered a form of slow release P fertilizer in P limited soils, however, investigations of the chemical fate of TPP in soils are limited. It has been proposed that TPP rapidly hydrolyzes in the soil solution before adsorbing or precipitating with soil surfaces, ...

Plant production is essentially dependant on culture medium and conditions. Vegetable crops are known to grow in soil which, in natural conditions, acts as a mineral nutrient reservoir, but the soil itself is not essential to plant growth. Plant roots are able to absorb the mineral nutrients of the soil dissolved in water. When the required mineral nutrients are introduced into artificially syn...

This study aimed to assess the feasibility of predicting ranges in N2O emission with a boundary line approach using a few key driving factors. Intact soil cores (9 cm dia. and ~20 cm in depth) were collected from pasture, cereal cropping and sugarcane lands and incubated at various temperature and moisture conditions after addition of different forms of mineral nitrogen (NH4 and NO3). The pastu...

Establishment of perennial grass seedlings is critical for repairing rangeland ecosystems in the Western United States. Mineral N in the soil may be one of the controlling factors for seedling establishment and may improve the competitive ability of perennial grasses compared to the annual grass, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.). A greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate the effects o...

Leaching losses of N are a major limitation of crop production on permeable soils and under heavy rainfalls as in the humid tropics. We established a field trial in the central Amazon (near Manaus, Brazil) in order to study the influence of charcoal and compost on the retention of N. Fifteen months after organic-matter admixing (0–0.1 m soil depth), we added 15N-labeled (NH4)2SO4 (27.5 kg N ha–...

To date, several bacterial species have been described as mineral-weathering agents which improve plant nutrition and growth. However, the possible relationships between mineral-weathering potential, taxonomic identity, and metabolic ability have not been investigated thus far. In this study, we characterized a collection of 61 bacterial strains isolated from Scleroderma citrinum mycorrhizae, t...

The main objective of this study was to compare the performance of two liquid organic fertilizers, an animal and a plant-based fertilizer, with mineral fertilization on citrus trees. The source of the fertilizer (mineral or organic) had significant effect in the nutritional status of the organic and conventionally managed mandarins. Nutrient uptake, vegetative growth, carbohydrate synthesis and...

Understanding the proximate causes of post-fire conifer mortality due to smoldering duff fires is essential to the restoration and management of coniferous forests throughout North America. To better understand duff fire-caused mortality, we investigated tree stress and radial growth following experimental fires in a long-unburned forest on deep sands in northern Florida, USA. We burned basal f...

Wheat is an important source of minerals such as iron, zinc, copper and magnesium in the UK diet. The dietary intake of these nutrients has fallen in recent years because of a combination of reduced energy requirements associated with sedentary lifestyles and changes in dietary patterns associated with lower micronutrient density in the diet. Recent publications using data from food composition...

Volatilization of pesticides from soils under dry conditions (water content below the permanent wilting point) can be significantly influenced by sorption to hydrated mineral surfaces. This sorption process strongly depends on the water activity, expressed as equilibrium relative humidity in the pore space of the soil, and on the available surface area of the hydrated minerals. In this study, t...