The determination of hot‐water‐soluble boron in some acid Oregon soils using a modified azomethine‐H procedure

Abstract

A method is proposed for determination of hot‐water‐soluble boron in acid soils from western Oregon. The soil sample is boiled in 0.02 M CaCl₂, filtered, and B determined using azomethine‐H. Soils extracted in this way yielded extracts with little color in them and the predicted error due to this color was 0.00–0.07 ppm B. The use of charcoal as a decolorizing agent resulted in comparatively high predicted errors.

Inductively‐coupled plasma emission spectroscopic (ICP) analysis of distilled water and 0.02 M CaCl₂ extracts indicated that the extractable B level was not affected by the presence of CaCl₂. Azomethine‐H yielded comparable values to ICP but the curcumin method tended to give high values for hot‐water‐soluble B.     

Predicting Post-Harvest Soil Test Values in Hybrid Rice (Oryza Sativa L.) – Wheat (Triticum Aesitvum L.) Cropping Sequence Using a Multivariate Analysis Technique

ABSTRACT

Knowledge of the initial soil fertility status is very crucial to make the soil test-based fertilizer recommendations and therefore it is necessary to develop alternative techniques to predict the post-harvest soil test values than analyzing the soils after every crop. The study was done to develop multiple linear regression (MLR) models to predict soil available nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur in the hybrid rice-wheat cropping sequence. The post-harvest soil test values were considered as the dependent variable and initial soil nutrients applied nutrient through fertilizer and farmyard manure and grain yield as independent variables. In general, the accuracy of prediction for the calibration and validation models using the single year and two-year data model was significant and had a coefficient of determination was ≥0.75. Although the performance of MLR model to predict post-harvest soil N, P and S after the individual crop was better than that after whole rice-wheat cropping sequence, predictions of the post-rice-wheat sequence of soil N, P and S also had acceptable levels of accuracy. Thus, the concept of the using the MLR-based models to predict the post-harvest soil test values could be used in hybrid rice-wheat cropping sequence to make the soil test-based fertilizer recommendations to the individual crops or whole cropping sequence.     

Cadmium sulfate application to sludge‐amended soils: III. Relationship between treatment and plant available cadmium,zinc, and manganese1

Abstract

Swiss chard (Beta vulgarisvar. cicla) and corn (Zea maysL.) were used as biological indicators of Cd, Zn and Mn availability in 12 soils amended with and without sludge, CdSO₄and CaCO₃. Soil Cd, Zn and Mn were partitioned into six fractions: soluble, exchangeable, adsorbed, organically bound, carbonate bound and sulfide bound, by the use of H₂O, KNO₃, H₂O, NaOH, EDTA and HNO₃, respectively. The data indicate that the major portion of total Cd was found in the carbonate, residual and organic fractions. Addition of CaCO₃caused an increase in the soluble and exchangeable fractions of Cd in the soils. The concentrations of Cd in the saturation extracts of the limed soils were significantly greater than those of the unlimed soils; however, this was not reflected in greater plant uptake of Cd from limed soils.