Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Khan, Waqas-ud-Din
• Ramzani, Pia Muhammad Adnan
• Anjum, Shazia
• Abbas, Farhat
• Iqbal, Muhammad
• Yasar, Abdullah
• Ihsan, Muhammad Zahid
• Anwar, Muhammad Naveed
• Baqar, Mujtaba
• Tauqeer, Hafiz Muhammad
• Virk, Zaheer Abbas
• Khan, Shahbaz Ali

Titel

Potential of miscanthus biochar to improve sandy soil health, in situ nickel immobilization in soil and nutritional quality of spinach

Ist Teil von

• Chemosphere (Oxford), 2017-10, Vol.185, p.1144-1156

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The complex interaction of biochar (BC) with soil health reflecting properties, the feedstock used to prepare BC and application rate of BC in sandy soil is still a question for the researchers. An incubation study was conducted where nine different sorts of BC, each prepared from the different feedstock, were applied at 2% rate to evaluate their relative suitability to improve sandy soil health. Results revealed that BC prepared from miscanthus (MIB) significantly increased soil medium and fine pores, available water content (AWC), electrical conductivity (EC), and cation exchange capacity (CEC) while decreased soil wide pores, pH, bulk density (BD) and particle density (PD) compared to the rest sorts of BC. Later, spinach was grown in pots containing same soil but spiked with 50 ppm nickel (Ni) and amended with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5% rates of MIB. The results showed a significant increment in spinach biomass, reduction in the concentrations of Ni in spinach tissues and DTPA-extractable Ni with the increasing rate of MIB till 3% and later, no significant changes with 4 and 5% rates thereafter. However, significant improvement in the activities of antioxidant enzymes, chemical and biochemical attributes of spinach were observed at 5% MIB when compared to lower rates. Similarly, post-harvest soil physicochemical and enzymatic parameters were also significantly (P < 0.05) improved with increasing rates of MIB. This study implies that application of MIB at 5% rate can improve the nutritional quality of spinach, sandy soil health and can reduce Ni concentrations in spinach tissues. •Compared to other feedstocks, miscanthus biochar (MIB) improved sandy soil health.•Application of MIB at 1, 2 and 3% rates increased spinach biomass.•The activities of antioxidant enzymes in spinach were maximum at 5% MIB rate.•Increasing rates of MIB significantly improved the activities of soil enzymes.