Out of sight : Profiling soil characteristics, nutrients and bacterial communities affected by organic amendments down to one meter in a long-term maize experiment
Common soil characteristics, nutrients and microbial activity at deeper soil depths are topics seldom covered in agricultural studies. Biogeochemical cycles in deep soils are not yet fully understood. This study investigates the effect of different mineral and organic fertilisation on soil organic matter dynamics, nutrients and bacterial community composition in the first meter of the soil profiles in the long-term maize cropping system experiment Tetto Frati, near the Po River in northern Italy. The following treatments have been applied since 1992: 1) crop residue removal (CRR), 2) crop residue incorporation (CRI), 3) crop residue removal with bovine slurry fertilisation (SLU), 4) crop re…
Changes in soil mineral N content and abundances of bacterial communities involved in N reactions under laboratory conditions as predictors of soil N availability to maize under field conditions.
Proper management of soil fertility requires specific tools for predicting N availability for crops as a consequence of different fertilization strategies. More information is required, especially for organic fertilizers, depending on their mineralization rate, composition, and processing (i.e., fresh or composted manure), as well as their effects on soil properties. Laboratory soil incubations were used as a proxy for understanding plant–soil N dynamics under field conditions. Chemical and microbiological measurements as contents of mineral N, potentially mineralizable N and the abundance of key genes regulating the overall N cycle were used as predictors of mineral N availability to maize…