Chloroform fumigation and the release of soil nitrogen: A rapid direct extraction method to measure microbial biomass nitrogen in soil

A new “direct extraction” method for measuring soil microbial biomass nitrogen (biomass N) is described. The new method (fumigation-extraction) is based on CHC1₃ fumigation, followed by immediate extraction with 0.5 M K₂SO₄ and measurement of total N released by CHC1₃ in the soil extracts. The amounts of NH₄-N and total N extracted by K₂SO₄ immediately after fumigation increased with fumigation time up to 5 days. Total N released by CHC1₃ after 1 day fumigation (1 day CHC1₃-N) and after 5 days fumigation (5 day CHC1₃-N) were positively correlated with the flush of mineral N (F_N) in 37 soils that had been fumigated, the fumigant removed and the soils incubated for 10 days (fumigation-incubation). The regression equations were 1 day CHC1₃-N = (0.79 ± 0.022) F_N and 5 day CHC1₃-N = (1.01 ± 0.027) F_N, both regressions accounting for 92% of the variance in the data.In field soils previously treated with ¹⁵N-labelled fertilizer, the amounts of labelled N, measured after fumigation-extraction, were very similar to the amounts of labelled N mineralized during fumigation-incubation; both were about 4 times as heavily labelled as the soil N as a whole. These results suggest that fumigation-extraction and fumigation-incubation both measure the same fraction of the soil organic N (probably the cytoplasmic component of the soil microbial biomass) and that measurement of the total N released by CHC1₃ fumigation for 24 h provides a rapid method for measuring biomass N.