Organic Carbon Sequestration in Soil Humic Substances As Affected by Application of Different Nitrogen Fertilizers in a Vegetable-Rotation Cropping System

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • Meng Li
  • Hualing Hu
  • Xiaosong He
  • Jinhu Jia
  • Marios Drosos
  • Guoxi Wang
  • Liu, Fulai
  • Zhengyi Hu
  • Beidou Xi

Little is known on the effect of application of different nitrogen (N) fertilizers on soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in soil humic substances (HS). We investigated HS molecular characteristics in an Orthic Acrisol, southwestern China, under 2-year field fertilization of a urea (U), a polymer-coated urea (PCU) and a biochar-coated urea (BCU) using 13 C-CPMAS-NMR spectroscopy. Results showed that N fertilization promoted SOC sequestration into HS and favored alkyl-C and aromatic-C rather than O-alkyl-C and carbonyl-C for humic acids and humin in soil. Application of PCU and BCU may better enhance vegetable yield, SOC sequestration, and HS stability than the U application, which may benefit from longer time of N existence and higher total N in soil. Among the N treatments, BCU application mostly affected the compositions and stability of SOC in the HS for the OC input and prime effect of biochar for SOC transformation.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Volume67
Issue number11
Pages (from-to)3106-3113
Number of pages8
ISSN0021-8561
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Mar 2019

    Research areas

  • C-CPMAS-NMR spectroscopy, biochar, nitrogen addition, Slow-release nitrogen fertilizers (SRNF), soil organic matter

ID: 216468790