Potentially crop-N supply from different organic amendments to a soil from the low valley of the Ro Negro province,

Argentine.
Cardoso, C.a*, Laurent G.a, Rodrguez R.A.a, Miglierina A.M. a, Minoldo G.a, Dagna N.a and Orden L.b a Agronomy Departament, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Av. San Andres 800. (8000) Baha Blanca. Argentina. Tel: 54-291-4595102 b: EEA INTA H. Ascasubi. *carlos.cardoso.p@gmail.com
Organic amendments are commonly utilized as a nutrient source in crop production. Their applications usually are in N-based doses but it is essential to consider mineralization. The aim of this research was to determine the potential N-supply from three different organic amendments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Soil (<2 mm) : clay 370 g kg -1, silt 390 g kg -1, sand 240 g kg -1 aerobically pre-incubated during 4 weeks at 25 C (drying-wetting cycles 30-60% of water field pore space) Amendments utilized: V, vermicompost (350 kg N ha-1 equivalent) CCO, composted mix of cattle manure with onion residues (350 kg N ha-1 equivalent) BioO, commercial organic fertilizer based on poultry manure (350 kg N ha-1 equivalent) Aerobic incubation : 130 days Analytical determinations: N-Ammonium (NH4+- N) and N-Nitrate (NO3--N) extracted with KCl 2M (1:10) (Mulvaney, 1996). Statistical analysis: ANAVA and Fishers LSD05 with INFOSTAT software (Di Rienzo et al., 2008).
Table 1. Selected characteristics of soil and amendments

TOC % Soil CCO V BioO 2.54 12.09 17.37 13.71

TN 0.16 1.29 1.49 7.98

C:N 16 10 12 2

E.C. dS m 3.4 6.3 4.9 27

-1

pH 7.9 (1:2.5) 8.3 (1:10) 8.0 (1:10) 6.3 (1:10)

TOC: total organic Carbon, TN: total Nitrogen, E.C.: electrical conductivity, CCO: composted cattle manure with onion residues, V: vermicompost and BioO: commercial organic fertilizer based on poultry manure.

RESULTS
Table 2. NH4+-N + NO3--N recovered of the total N applied to the soil as amendments at different times during the incubation period

Days of incubation
1 12 45 58 72 85 111 130 Average

Treatment BioO V CCO

Fig. 1. NH4+-N + NO3--N accumulated in control soil and soil amended with poultry manures
106 17 40 105 2 16 96 12 18

Ni recovered (%) 110 -1 15 105 4 24 120 -5 7 88 9 19 63 16 10

(%) 99 7 19

Ni = NH4+-N + NO3--N.

CONCLUSIONS

Organic amendment release different amounts of

Ni depending, specially on the characteristics of the raw material and the composting process. The knowledge of the dynamic of the Ni release can be a useful tool to improve the utilization efficiency of the organic amendments.

Fig. 2. NH4+-N and NO3--N (kg ha-1) released from soil amended with poultry manures.