| Abstract: | Interval leaching long‐term water‐logged incubation and interval leaching long‐term aerobic incubation were carried out to study the changes of different soil organic nitrogen (N) forms and their contributions to mineralized N during N‐mineralization process on 10 kinds of farmland soils with markedly different physical and chemical properties on the Loess Plateau. The results showed that the N‐mineralization capability and capacity using the two incubation methods were evidently different. After 217 days, cumulative mineralized N, the decreased amounts of total acid‐hydrolyzable N, acid‐hydrolyzable ammonia N, and acid‐hydrolyzable amino acid N in the water‐logged incubation were about twice those in the aerobic incubation. Soluble organic N leached in the aerobic incubation was four times that in the water‐logged incubation, which implied that organic N in the aerobic incubation mineralized more thoroughly than that in the water‐logged incubation. The correlation analysis of the changes of soil organic N forms with crop N uptake showed that the reduced amount of total acid‐hydrolyzable N in the water‐logged incubation was closely associated with total N uptake by two successive‐season crops (winter wheat and summer maize), and the decreased amounts of total acid‐hydrolyzable N and amino acid N in the aerobic incubation were highly significantly related to the N uptake of both the first season crop (winter wheat) and successive‐season maize. Multiple regression analysis, path analysis, and partial correlation analysis of the changes of soil organic N forms with mineralized N indicated that ammonia N was a main contribution to mineralized N in the water‐logged incubation, whereas both acid‐hydrolyzable amino acid and ammonia N were main contributions to mineralized N in the aerobic incubation. These results suggested that acid‐hydrolyzable ammonia was the primary contribution to mineralized N during N mineralization process with the two incubation methods. |
