Floating duckweed mitigated ammonia volatilization and increased grain yield and nitrogen use efficiency of rice in biochar amended paddy soils

Haijun Sun; Dan A; Yanfang Feng; Meththika Vithanage; Sanchita Mandal; Sabry M Shaheen; Jörg Rinklebe; Weiming Shi; Hailong Wang

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.124532

Floating duckweed mitigated ammonia volatilization and increased grain yield and nitrogen use efficiency of rice in biochar amended paddy soils

Chemosphere. 2019 Dec:237:124532. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.124532. Epub 2019 Aug 8.

Authors

Haijun Sun¹, Dan A², Yanfang Feng³, Meththika Vithanage⁴, Sanchita Mandal⁵, Sabry M Shaheen⁶, Jörg Rinklebe⁷, Weiming Shi⁸, Hailong Wang⁹

Affiliations

¹ Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. Electronic address: hjsun@njfu.edu.cn.
² Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. Electronic address: adan@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
³ Institute of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing, 210014, China. Electronic address: jaasfengyanfang@163.com.
⁴ Ecosphere Resilience Research Center, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka. Electronic address: meththika@sjp.ac.lk.
⁵ Future Industries Institute, Building X, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA, 5095, Australia. Electronic address: sanchita516@gmail.com.
⁶ Laboratory of Soil- and Groundwater-Management, Institute of Foundation Engineering, Water- and Waste-Management, School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, University of Wuppertal, Pauluskirchstraße 7, 42285, Wuppertal, Germany; Department of Arid Land Agriculture, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment, and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, 21589, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Department of Soil and Water Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Kafrelsheikh, 33516 Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt. Electronic address: shaheen@uni-wuppertal.de.
⁷ Laboratory of Soil- and Groundwater-Management, Institute of Foundation Engineering, Water- and Waste-Management, School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, University of Wuppertal, Pauluskirchstraße 7, 42285, Wuppertal, Germany; Department of Environment, Energy and Geoinformatics, University of Sejong, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: rinklebe@uni-wuppertal.de.
⁸ School of Food Science and Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, 528000, Guangdong, China. Electronic address: wmshi@issas.ac.cn.
⁹ School of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 311300, China; School of Environment and Chemical Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, 528000, Guangdong, China. Electronic address: hailong.wang@fosu.edu.cn.

PMID: 31551202
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.124532

Abstract

Biochar (BC) potentially accelerates ammonia (NH₃) volatilization from rice paddy soils. In this regard, however, application the floating duckweed (FDW) to biochar-amended soil to control the NH₃ volatilization is not studied up-to-date. Therefore, the impacts of BC application with and without FDW on the NH₃ and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, NUE and rice grain yield were evaluated in a soil columns experiment. We repacked soil columns with Hydragric Anthrosol and Haplic Acrisol treated in triplicates with Urea, Urea + BC and Urea + BC + FDW. Total NH₃ losses from Hydragric Anthrosol and Haplic Acrisol were 15.2-33.2 kg N ha^-1 and 19.6-39.7 kg N ha^-1, respectively. Urea + BC treatment recorded 25.6-43.7% higher (p < 0.05) NH₃ losses than Urea treatment, attributing to higher pH value of floodwater. Floating duckweed decreased soil pH and therefore significantly reduced (p < 0.05) the NH₃ volatilizations from the two soils by 50.6-54.2% over Urea + BC and by 34.2-38.0% over Urea treatment. Total N₂O emissions from Hydragric Anthrosol and Haplic Acrisol were 1.19-3.42 kg N ha^-1 and 0.67-2.08 kg N ha^-1, respectively. Urea + BC treatment increased N₂O emissions by 58.8-68.7% and Urea + BC + FDW treatment further increased N₂O emission by 187.4-210.4% over Urea treatment. Higher ammonium content of the topsoil, explained the N₂O increases in the Urea + BC and Urea + BC + FDW treatments. Urea + BC slightly reduced the rice grain yield and NUE, while the Urea + BC + FDW promoted both rice yield and NUE. Our data indicate that co-application of FDW along with BC in paddy soil could mitigate the NH₃ volatilization and enhance the rice grain yield and NUE.

Keywords: Ammonia volatilization; Atmospheric environment; Biochar; Grain yield; Nitrogen use efficiency; Urea.

MeSH terms

Ammonia / chemistry
Ammonia / metabolism*
Biodegradation, Environmental*
Charcoal / chemistry*
Edible Grain / chemistry
Fertilizers / analysis
Nitrogen / chemistry
Nitrogen / metabolism*
Nitrous Oxide / analysis
Oryza / chemistry
Soil / chemistry*
Urea / chemistry
Volatilization

Substances

Fertilizers
Soil
biochar
Charcoal
Ammonia
Urea
Nitrous Oxide
Nitrogen