Comparison of extractable phosphorus from two sulfuric acid methods with the Mehlich phosphorus test number one

Abstract

All mineral phosphates in soil dissolve more completely when HCl is mixed with H₂SO₄ than with the HCl alone. It was hypothesized that a new extracting solution of H₂SO₄ alone with the same ionic strength or the same acidity as the Mehlich P1 extractant would extract similar amounts of soil phosphorus (P) as the Mehlich P1 soil test. Thirty six acid soils from Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Colorado were used in this study. These acid soils reflect wide ranges in parent materials, texture, pH, organic matter, and available soil P. They were analyzed for available soil P with the Mehlich P1 soil test and with the two H₂SO₄ methods: Method A has an extracting solution of same ionic strength (0.0875M) as the Mehlich P1 extractant, and Method B was an extracting solution of the same acidity (0.0375M) as the Mehlich P1 extractant. Correlations between the results of Mehlich P1 with Method A and Method B were 0.994 and 0.997, respectively. The measured test precision was <3.5% for all three methods. The new H₂SO₄ methods are simple and faster to conduct under routine operations than the original Mehlich P1 extractant, and because of the high correlations, the H₂SO₄ methods should predict crop response to P as well as the original Mehlich P1 extractant for acid soils.