Changes in Soil Carbon Mineralization as Affected by Different Bio-Char Application

Soils are the largest carbon reservoirs of the terrestrial carbon cycle. And, can serve as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide, if are properly managed. A laboratory incubation experiment was carried out to study the mineralization rate of two different types of charcoal in soil in presence of farm yard manure. The experiment design comprised the ten treatments (T1-10) with three replications in completely randomized block design. The amount of C involved as CO2 during the exposure to alkali inside the pot was calculated as outlined by Chan et. al., Microbial biomass C (mg C/kg Soil) (Jenkinson and Powlson) and Pools of Soil Organic Carbon (g/kg soil) by Walkly-Black oxidizable The results showed that The highest cumulative loss of C as CO2 from soil due to microbial respiration under different treatments at different incubation periods were on Soil + equivalent amount of pigeon pea charcoal added in T8 (0.250g pigeon pea charcoal containing 52.34% C) and the highest Total amount of C added to the soil in different treatments were on Soil + FYM spiked with hard wood charcoal @ 10% of the total weight of FYM