Ye Jun, Zhang Rui, Nielsen Shaun, Joseph Stephen D, Huang Danfeng, Thomas Torsten
Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation & School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, The University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW, Australia.
School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai, China.
Front Microbiol. 2016 Apr 8;7:372. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2016.00372. eCollection 2016.
Organic farming avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers and promises food production with minimal environmental impact, however this farming practice does not often result in the same productivity as conventional farming. In recent years, biochar has received increasing attention as an agricultural amendment and by coating it with minerals to form biochar-mineral complex (BMC) carbon retention and nutrient availability can be improved. However, little is known about the potential of BMC in improving organic farming. We therefore investigated here how soil, bacterial and plant properties respond to a combined treatment of BMC and an organic fertilizer, i.e., a compost based on poultry manure. In a pakchoi pot trial, BMC and compost showed synergistic effects on soil properties, and specifically by increasing nitrate content. Soil nitrate has been previously observed to increase leaf size and we correspondingly saw an increase in the surface area of pakchoi leaves under the combined treatment of BMC and composted chicken manure. The increase in soil nitrate was also correlated with an enrichment of bacterial nitrifiers due to BMC. Additionally, we observed that the bacteria present in the compost treatment had a high turnover, which likely facilitated organic matter degradation and a reduction of potential pathogens derived from the manure. Overall our results demonstrate that a combination of BMC and compost can stimulate microbial process in organic farming that result in better vegetable production and improved soil properties for sustainable farming.
有机农业避免使用合成肥料，并承诺以对环境影响最小的方式进行粮食生产，然而这种耕作方式的产量往往不如传统农业。近年来，生物炭作为一种农业改良剂受到越来越多的关注，通过在其表面包覆矿物质形成生物炭-矿物复合体（BMC），可以提高碳固存和养分有效性。然而，关于BMC在改善有机农业方面的潜力，人们了解甚少。因此，我们在此研究了土壤、细菌和植物特性如何响应BMC与有机肥料（即基于家禽粪便的堆肥）的联合处理。在小白菜盆栽试验中，BMC和堆肥对土壤特性表现出协同效应，特别是增加了硝酸盐含量。此前已观察到土壤硝酸盐会增加叶片大小，相应地，在BMC与鸡粪堆肥的联合处理下，我们看到小白菜叶片表面积有所增加。土壤硝酸盐的增加还与BMC导致的细菌硝化菌富集有关。此外，我们观察到堆肥处理中的细菌周转速度很快，这可能促进了有机物降解，并减少了粪便中潜在病原体的数量。总体而言，我们的结果表明，BMC和堆肥的组合可以刺激有机农业中的微生物过程，从而实现更好的蔬菜生产，并改善土壤特性以实现可持续农业。
