The Effect of Soil Compaction on Ammonium and Nitrate Concentrations and Wheat Nitrogen Uptake in two Different Soils

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

In order to investigate the effect of soil compaction on soil nitrogen mineralization process and its uptake by wheat a factorial experiment in a completely randomized design with three replications was designed. Experiment was conducted with three levels of compaction (normal, 10% and 20% compression), two soil textures (sandy and clay) and five sampling times (1, 7, 14, 30 and 60 days after planting). Ammonium and nitrate concentrations in soil were measured at five time intervals. Results indicated that the effect of soil compaction, time interval and the interaction of soil compaction and time intervals on concentrations of ammonium and nitrate were significant (p<0.01). Ammonium and nitrate concentrations in normal compression treatments were higher than those of other treatments (30 and 79 milligrams per kilogram). The temporal trend of concentration changes was increasing for ammonium nitrogen and decreasing for nitrate nitrogen. Results showed significant decrease in ammonium concentration in compressed samples related to the second and third time periods (with an average concentration of 20.75 and 13.68 mg per kg respectively in treatment with 20% compression). Also soil type had significant effect on nitrate concentration (p<0.05) and interaction of soil type and time intervals had significant effect on ammonium concentration (p<0.05). Ammonium and nitrate concentrations in clay soil were higher than those in the sandy soil. In general, by increasing soil compaction, soil total nitrogen was decreased. Conversion of organic nitrogen to ammonium in compressed samples was lower and the formation of nitrate was decreased, also in the compressed treatments less nitrogen was used.

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