POTASSIUM DYNAMICS IN THREE ALLUVIAL SOILS DIFFERING IN CLAY CONTENTS

Authors

  • Abdul Wakeel Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan
  • Mehreen Gul Institue of Plant Nutrition, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
  • Muhammad Sanaullah Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.9755/ejfa.v25i1.15395

Keywords:

Alluvial soils, Clay, Electro-ultra-filtration, K -dynamics, K -fixing soils

Abstract

Despite the presence of a huge amount of potassium (K+ ) in the soil, most of the soils are deficient in plant available K+ . A large amount of the K+ is fixed by clay minerals present in such soils and cannot be taken up by plants to achieve optimum plant growth. In such type of soils, large amount of K+ fertilizers are required for optimum plant growth, as plants do not respond enough to a normally recommended K+ fertilization. Vermiculite clay minerals can fix an enormous amount of applied K+ , which becomes slowly available to the plants. The K+ dynamics in such soils are valuable to recommend K+ fertilizer requirements for sustainable nutrient management. We analyzed the K+ dynamics of three alluvial soils, i.e Kleinlinden, Giessen and Trebur, collected from Germany and found that the soils with vermiculite and smectite clay minerals have more K+ - fixing ability than soils dominated by illite clay minerals. However, as the K+ concentration decreased in the soil solution, smectite-dominant soils may easily release fixed K+ due to lower particle-charge, whereas vermiculite and illite dominant soils may not release fixed K+ easily. Moreover, ammonium exchangeable K+ , non-exchangeable K+ , total K+ and K+ -fixing capacity of these soils are directly proportional to the soil clay contents. While recommending K+ fertilizers clay contents and the type of clay minerals is not considered and recommended K+ fertilizers sometimes do not response plant growth enhancement. Therefore potassium fertilizer should be recommended by taking into consideration the type and amount of clay minerals present in the soil.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Published

2012-11-12

How to Cite

Wakeel, A., M. Gul, and M. Sanaullah. “POTASSIUM DYNAMICS IN THREE ALLUVIAL SOILS DIFFERING IN CLAY CONTENTS”. Emirates Journal of Food and Agriculture, vol. 25, no. 1, Nov. 2012, pp. 39-44, doi:10.9755/ejfa.v25i1.15395.

Issue

Section

Regular Articles