Short-term effects of application of different rates of inorganic P and residue P on soil P pools and wheat growth

Phosphorus (P) can be added to soil as inorganic P or crop-residue P, but little is known about how these two forms of P addition affect soil P pools and how their effect changes with the rate of P addition. A glasshouse experiment was conducted to assess the effect of inorganic P and P added as residues at different rates on (1) soil P pools at two time points: immediately after amendment and 42 d later, and (2) growth and P uptake by wheat at flowering (day 42). Three types of legume residues (faba bean young shoot, chickpea mature shoots with pods, and white lupin mature shoots without pods) were added to a loamy-sand soil at a rate of 5 or 15 g residuekg(-1). Inorganic P was added at four different rates (3, 10, 30, and 100 mg Pkg(-1)) to give P-addition rates corresponding to the total P added with the different residues at the two residue rates. Soil P pool concentrations (microbial P, resin-P, NaHCO3-P, NaOH-P, HCl-P, and residual P) and wheat growth and P uptake (shoot and root) were measured after 6 weeks. Compared to inorganic P addition, P added with residues led to a 10%-80% greater increase in shoot biomass at the two highest P-addition rates. Wheat P uptake was positively correlated with resin-P and microbial-P concentrations in residue-P-amended soil, but with resin-P and NaOH-P-i concentrations in soil amended with inorganic P. The concentration of HCl-P decreased by up to 30% from day 0 to day 42 in the residue treatments and that of residual P decreased by about 20% in all treatments during this period suggesting that these nonlabile P pools are quite dynamic and could serve as P source for plants.