Physicochemical Factors Affecting Nitrogen Mineralization in Soil Cultivated Tropical Pastures
Physicochemical Factors Affecting Nitrogen Mineralization in Soil Cultivated Tropical Pastures
Gerardo J. Cuenca-Nevárez1,2* and Juan Carlos Menjivar-Flores2,3
ABSTRACT
At present, there are no reliable criteria for how much nitrogen fertilizer to add in pasture soils, so it is important to improve the efficiency of nitrogen (N) fertilizer use in pasture soils. It is therefore necessary to identify a fast and reliable soil N test procedure for predicting mineralizable N (mN), for soils cultivated with tropical grasses. In this investigation the Nm of 35 farms (depth 0.20m) of the North zone of Manabí was analyzed, integrating them with certain physicochemical properties and as reference method of the Nm was worked from the data obtained by the Walkley-Black indicator (WB). The Illinois Soil Nitrogen Test (ISNT) and Direct Steam Distillation (DSD) indicators were strongly correlated with each other (R2 = 0.92), while correlating the WB indicator with DSD was obtained (R2 = 0.94). The results showed that higher Nm was estimated by ISNT and DSD than by WB, and that its content was different depending on the apparent soil density and carbon level C as soil parameters. The methodology that best correlated with the WB indicator was DSD, so this indicator is a great predictor tool of nitrogen fertilization to achieve agronomic and environmental sustainability of livestock farms in tropical Ecuador.
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November 2023
Vol. 39, Sp. Iss. 2
