Reducing Ammonia Volatilization from Urea Fertilizer Applied in a Waterlogged Tropical Acid Soil via Mixture of Rice Straw and Rice Husk Biochars

Year 2022, Volume: 28 Issue: 2, 269 - 277, 25.04.2022

Gunavathy Selvarajh Huck Ywıh Chng

https://doi.org/10.15832/ankutbd.836980

Abstract

Nitrogen deficiency frequently occurs in agricultural soil because of ammonia volatilization to the environment, resulting in low urea-N use efficiency by plants. A laboratory incubation experiment was conducted to assess the effect of rice straw and rice husk biochar’s on ammonia volatilization, soil pH, exchangeable ammonium, and available nitrate in comparison to the urea without additives under waterlogged conditions. Application of rice straw and rice husk biochar’s mixture at application rate 5-10 t ha-1 had significantly minimized ammonia volatilization by 30.86% - 38.61% over T1 (175 kg ha-1 urea). T2 (5 t ha-1) and T3 (10 t ha-1) also had significantly increased retention of ammonium by 79% - 95% and nitrate ions by 49% - 51% over control. The treatments amended with biochar had successfully improved soil pH compared to T0 (soil only) and T1. Hence, the findings suggest that urea amended with rice straw and rice husk biochar’s altered the nutrients level in the soil by minimizing ammonia loss to enhance nitrogen availability in waterlogged conditions.

Keywords

Ammonia volatilization, Biochar, Nitrogen, Urea, Ammonium

Supporting Institution

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA KELANTAN

Project Number

R/FRGS/A0700/01459A/002/2018/00563; R/MOF/A07.00/01397A/007/2020/00721; TUMKEI-MPC

Thanks

The authors would like to thank Malaysia Ministry of Education and Malaysia Ministry of Finance for financial assistance and Universiti Malaysia Kelantan Jeli Campus for providing research facilities. This research was supported by grants from the Malaysia Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) (Grant. No.: R/FRGS/A0700/01459A/002/2018/00563); UMK-MOF Social Enterprise Program (R/MOF/A07.00/01397A/007/2020/00721); and High-impact Entrepreneurship Program in 2019 TUMKEI-MPC.

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