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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled
NITROGEN AVAILABILITY FOR SUGAR BEETS (Beta Vulgaris)
AS AFFECTED BY SOIL TYPE, CROPPING SYSTEM
AND NITROGEN RATE

presented by

MOHAMMAD BASHIR BUTT

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

 

 

Ph.D degree“, CROP AND SOIL SCIENCE

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Major professor

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MS U is an Afﬁrmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 042771

 

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TO AVOID FINES Mum on or More data duo.

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSU Is An Manama Action/Equal Opportunity Institution
Walla-9.1

 

NITROGEN AVAILABILITY FOR SUGAR BEETS (Beta Vulgaris)
AS AFFECTED BY SOIL TYPE, CROPPING SYSTEM
AND NITROGEN RATE

By

Mohammad Bashir Butt

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Crop and Soil Science

1994

ABSTRACT

NITROGEN AVAILABILITY FOR SUGAR BEETS (Beta Vulgaris) AS
AFFECTED BY SOIL TYPE, CROPPING SYSTEM AND N RATE

By

Mohammad Bashir Butt

Nitrogen supply for sugar beet production is important because of economic and
environmental considerations. The objective of this research was to study the N availability
for sugarbeet crop in Saginaw valley and Thumb region of Michigan. A series of experiments
were conducted to study the effect of N fertilizer rate, cropping systems and soil type on
sugar beet yield and quality. Effect of soil type, cropping system and sampling time on N
mineralization potential (N o) and associated rate constant (It) was evaluated in long term
incubation experiments. The NO and k values were calculated using exponential and
hyperbolic models by an iterative statistical procedure in a nonlinear regression program. The
useﬁllness of several organic N availability indices for predicting N availability under various
types of soils and crepping systems was evaluated by simple and multiple correlation and
regression techniques.

In a 44 week incubation study, N0 and k values varied both within and between soil
series. This suggests that past management has a signiﬁcant inﬂuence on mineralization
potential. N0 and It were aﬁ‘ected by the amount of crop residue returned in the long term
cropping systems study. Effect of sampling time on N mineralization was not clear due to the
year to year variations of results. Both exponential and hyperbolic models were similar in

predicting the reliable estimates of N0 and k.

In fertilizer rate experiment yield response to applied N was signiﬁcantly different for
various types of soils and cropping systems. Percent sugar and juice purity showed a negative
relationship with increasing amount of N.

Organic N measured by various procedures showed differences among the cropping
systems and soils. However, the relationship between the organic N test and yield response

did not allow for prediction of N fertilizer needs for sugar beet.

DEDICATED

To my mother, the most extraordinary blessing in my life
and

To the memories of my father who taught me the greatest values of life.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am highly indebted to Almighty Allah, the most Merciful and Compassionate, the most
Gracious and Beneﬁcent, whose bounteous blessings enabled me to perceive and pursue
higher ideals of life.

I wish to express my heart felt gratitude to my academic advisor, Dr. Donald R.
Christenson Professor, Department of Crop and Soil Science for his valuable suggestions,
inspiring and dexterous guidance, consistent encouragement and cooperation in completion
of this manuscript. The ﬁnancial and moral support he provided during the crisis with USAID
is highly appreciated. I sincerely extend my thanks to Dr. Boyd Ellis, Dr. Darryl Warncke,
Dr. James Crum and Dr. Irvin Widders for serving on my guidance committee, cooperation
and critical evaluation of my work.

Sincere appreciation is extended to Calvin Bricker and Lee Siler for their help and
cooperation in ﬁeld and laboratory work. I would like to record my sincerest thanks to all my
ﬁiends especially, Deliana Siregar , Gladis Zinati , Charles and Moacir for their help.

Appreciation is expressed to Michigan and Monitor Sugar Companies for their
ﬁnancial support. Gratitude is expressed to the Agronomic Staﬂ' of Sugar Companies for
their assistance in conducting many of the ﬁeld studies. The laboratory analysis conducted
by the Companies is gratefully acknowledged.

V

I do not ﬁnd words to offer my grateﬁrlness to my loving mother, sister, brothers and
in laws who stretched hands to achieve high goals of life.

Last, but not least my wife F aree and adorable daughter Nada deserve special thanks
for their sacriﬁce and patience. Faree's help, encouragement and prayers enabled me to

complete this manuscript.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES .....................................................................................
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................

CHAPTER I.
Introduction .........................................................................
List of References ................................................................

CHAPTER II.
Review of Literature .............................................................
List of References ................................................................

CHAPTER III.
Nitrogen Mineralization As Affected By Cropping System ..
Material and Method ............................................................
Results and Discussion .........................................................
List of References ................................................................

CHAPTER IV.
Nitrogen Mineralization Potential of Soils ﬁ'orn Michigan’s
Saginaw valley and Thumb Region ......................................
Materials and Methods .........................................................
Results and Discussion .........................................................
List of References ................................................................

CHAPTER V.
Sugarbeet Yield And Quality As Affected By N Fertilizer,
Soil Type and Cropping System ...........................................
Materials and Methods ..........................................................
Results and Discussion ..........................................................
List of References .................................................................

38
4O

48

62

67
72

87
89
91
97

CHAPTER VI.
Soil Analysis and Prediction of prediction of response to
applied nitrogen ...................................................................
Materials and Methods ..........................................................
Results and Discussion .........................................................
List of References .................................................................

SUMMARY ................................................................................................

viii

111
113
118
124

132

LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER III

Table 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

Table 4.

Table 5.

Total N and oxidizable C concentrations in soils from
the cropping system study, 1992 and 1993 ...........................

Eﬂ‘ect of cropping system and sampling date on N
mineralization potential (No) rate constant (k) and active N
ﬁ'action for exponential and hyperbolic models for samples

taken in 1992 on Misteguay silty clay soil .............................

Eﬁ‘ect of cropping system and sampling date on N
mineralization potential (N 0) rate constant(k)and active N
ﬁ'action for exponential and hyperbolic models for samples
taken in 1993 on Misteguay silty clay soil ............................

Comparison of the instantaneous rate of reaction for the
exponential and hyperbolic models at various incubation
periods using linear regression on soil samples taken at two
dates in 1992 from cropping systems study on a
Misteguay silty clay soil .......................................................

Comparison of the instantaneous rate of reaction for the
exponential and hyperbolic models at various incubation
periods using linear regression on soil samples taken at two
dates in 1993 from cropping systems study on a

Misteguay silty clay soil .......................................................

CHAPTER IV.

Table 1.

Table 2.

Soil series, sub-order, total N, oxidizable C, particle size
analysis and previous crop for soils used in the incubation
study ...................................................................................

N mineralization potential (N0), rate constant (k) and
active N ﬁ'action for soils from the Saginaw Valley and
Thumb region of Michigan ..................................................
ix

52

53

54

55

57

75

76

Table 3. Comparison of the instantaneous rate of reaction for the
exponential and hyperbolic models at various incubation
periods using linear regression on soil samples taken ﬁom
N studies on 23 sites from 1991 through 1993 representing
soil series in the Saginaw Valley and Thumb region of
Michigan .............................................................................

CHAPTER V.

Table 1. Soil series, sub-order and cropping history of soils used in

N fertilizer rate experiments ..................................................

Table 2. Recoverable sugar as aﬂ‘ected by N rate and cropping system

for sugarbeet grown on Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992 .......

Table 3. Recoverable sugar as aﬂ‘ected by N rate and cropping system

for sugarbeet grown on Misteguay silty clay soil in 1993 .......

Table 4. Effect of N rate and cropping system on sugarbeet yield

grown on a Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992 ..........................

Table 5. Eﬁ‘ect of N rate and cropping system on sugarbeet yield

grown on a Misteguay silty clay soil in 1993 ..........................

Table 6. Monthly rainfall and growing degree days at the Saginaw

Valley Bean and Beet Research Farm for 1992 and 1993 .......

Table 7. Percent sugar as aﬁ‘ected by N rate and cropping system for

sugarbeet grown on a Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992 ..........

Table 8. Percent sugar as aﬁ‘ected by N rate and cropping system for

sugarbeet grown on a Misteguay silty clay soil in 1993 ..........

Table 9. Clear juice purity as aﬁected by N rate and cropping system

' for sugar beet grown on a Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992...

Table 10. Clear juice purity as affected by N rate and cropping system

for sugar beet grown on a Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992...

Table 11. Eﬁ‘ect of N rate on recoverable white sugar for sugarbeets

grown at 13 locations ﬁom 1991-1993 .................................

Table 12. Sugarbeet yield as aﬁ‘ected by N rate grown at 13 locations

ﬁ'om 1991-1993 ...................................................................

X

77

100

101

101

102

102

103

104

104

105

105

106

107

Table 13. Eﬁ‘ect of N rate on percent N in leaves for sugarbeets
grown at 13 locations ﬁom 1991-1993 .................................
Table 14. Eﬁ‘ect of N rate on percent sugar in sugarbeet grown at 13
locations from 1991-1993 .....................................................
Table 15. Eﬁ‘ect of N rate on clear juice purity for sugarbeet grown at
13 locations from 1991-1993 ................................................
CHAPTER VI
Table 1. Mineral N, organic N and Walkley Black carbon analysis for
soil samples taken from the sugar beet cropping system on a
Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992 and 1993 ............................
Table 2. Mineral N, organic N and Walkley Black carbon analysis for
soil samples taken from various locations ..............................
Table 3. Linear correlation coefﬁcients (r) among organic N analysis
for samples noted in table 1 and 2 .........................................
Table 4. Regression coefﬁcient and associated coeﬁcients of

determination (R2) for the Misteguay, Tappan, Parkhill and
Kilmanagh series and for all soils combined relating response

to applied N with mineral N and various organic N analysis...

108

109

110

127

128

129

130

CHAPTER III.
Figure 1. Cumulative N mineralized for four cropping systems from

a study on a Misteguay silty clay soil for samples taken

May 1992 .............................................................................
Figure 2. Cumulative N mineralized for four cropping systems ﬁ'om

a study on a Misteguay silty clay soil for samples taken

August 1992 .........................................................................
Figure 3. Cumulative N mineralized for ﬁve cropping systems ﬁom

a study on a Misteguay silty clay soil for samples taken

May 1993 ............................................................................
Figure 4. Cumulative N mineralized for ﬁve cropping systems ﬁom

a study on a Misteguay silty clay soil for samples taken

May 1993 samples ................................................................
CHAPTER IV.
Figure 1. Cumulative N mineralized for 5 Tappan soils ........................
Figure 2. Cumulative N mineralized for 3 Londo soils .............. I ...........
Figure 3. Cumulative N mineralized for 4 Kilmanagh ..........................
Figure 4. Cumulative N mineralized for 2 Shebeon soils ......................
Figure 5. Cumulative N mineralized for a Grindstone ...........................
Figure 6. Cumulative N mineralized for 3 Parkhill soils ........................

LIST Of FIGURES

xii

58

59

60

61

79

80

81

82

83

84

Figure 7. Cumulative N mineralized for 3 Capac soils .......................... 85

Figure 8. Cumulative N mineralized for a Zilwaukee and a Sloan soil... 86

xiii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

N iu'ogen is a major plant nutrient that inﬂuences crop growth, but excessive use
can lead to pollution of the environment by leaching, volatilization and erosion. Since it
is a costly input in many parts of the world it can inﬂuence net retum to the producer.

Nitrogen fertilizer management for sugar beet production requires more precise
information than other crops (Carter et a1. , 1975). Inadequate N availability can limit
plant growth and yield, but excess N may reduce both sucrose percentage and recoverable
sucrose (Hills and Ulrich, 1971).

The concerns of an environmentally safe, economically feasible and biologically
utilizable N supply requires accurate prediction of the fertilizer N requirement of the crop.
Efﬁcient utilization of fertilizer N in crop production requires an accurate assessment of
native soil N availability and the optimum requirements of the crop itself. The crop
fertilizer requirement is a function of many factors. Among these are residual and
mineralizable soil N and those elements of crop and soil management that inﬂuence the
fraction of total N that is in a readily mineralizable form (Stanford and Smith, 1972;

1976).

2

Nitrogen is derived predominantly from fertilizer, biologically ﬁxed N2, and
mineralization of organic N from crop residues and soil organic matter.

Surface soils commonly contain between 0.08 and 0.4 percent total N, almost
entirely in the organic form (Bremner, 19653). The uptake of N is predominantly in NI-I4
and N 03 forms. Organic N is made available to plants by microbial oxidation of soil
organic matter through the processes of mineralization and nitriﬁcation. The microbial
momposition of organic matter and release of N is an important process in rendering N
available for plant growth.

Residues from the previous crop are very important because of their contribution
of N to the successive crop. Crop rotation and the quantity of residue returned to the soil
inﬂuences soil organic matter and hence net mineralization and available N are affected.
Several long term studies have demonstrated the beneﬁcial effects of crop rotation on soil
organic matter content and crop production (Odell et al., 1984; Johnston, 1986).
Mineralization rate is also affected by other soil physical, chemical and biotic properties.
Texture is known to be a very important factor affecting soil organic-matter content. It
has been reported that losses of organic matter, potentially mineralizable N and the N
active fraction were greater in coarse textured compared to ﬁne texture soils (Campbell
and Souster, 1982; Herlihy, 1979). However, Bremner (1965b) reported that total N
increased as texture became frner.

An accurate estimate of available N in soils requires a reliable method for assessing
N supplying power of soil. Soil incubation methods for N mineralization are commonly

used for characterizing the soil parameter which determines N mineralization.

3

The mineralization process may be expressed by the model utilizing the ﬁrst order

exponential equation as proposed by Stanford and Smith (1972):

N = No [1- up (-kt)]
From incubation experiments, one obtains results of the mineralized N as a function of
time (t) with the objective of estimation of the mineralizeable N (N,) and the rate
coefﬁcient (k) which characterizes the soil and enables prediction of its N supplying power
(Talpaz et al., 1981).

The N mineralization potential (No) and associated rate constant (k), ﬁrst
represented by Stanford and Smith (1972), have been widely used as means of determining
the effects of various agriculture practices, such as N fertilization, tillage, crop rotation
etc. and soil properties on soil fertility (Herlihy, 1979; Doran, 1980; Campbell and
Souster, 1982; Carter and Rennie 1982; Chae and Tabatabai, 1985; Bonde and Rosswell,
1987; Campbell et al., 1991; Gharous et al. 1990). The use of No as an estimate of active
fraction of soil organic nitrogen under various climatic conditions and management
practices still needs to be assessed by repeated experimentation.

In view of these concerns, this study examined the effects of cropping system and
soil type in Lake bed area of Michigan, on N status of soil and the N availability to sugar

beets. Speciﬁc objectives of the study were:

1. Measure differences in the N status of soil under various cropping systems
after long term cropping practices by measuring different fractions of N in
the soil.

2. Evaluate effects of cropping systems on N availability for sugar beet by
various N availability indices.

4

Determine if one or more of the N availability indices correlate with the N
supplying capacity of different soils and cropping systems.

Determine the effects of fertilizer N application on yield and quality of
sugar beets in relation to N and organic matter status of soils under
different soils and cropping systems.

Determine a quick soil analysis procedure that can be used to predict
accurately, N requirements of sugar beet crop under various cropping
systems.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Bonde, T.A. and T. Rosswall. 1987. Seasonal variation of potentially mineralizable
nitrogen in four cropping systems. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 51: 1508-1514.

Bremner, J.M. 1965a. Nitrogen availability indexes. In C.A. Black (ed.) Methods of soil
analysis, part 2. Agronomy 9:1324-1345. Am. Soc. Agron., Madison, Wis.

Bremner, J .M. 1965b. Total nitrogen. In C.A. Black (ed.) Methods of soil analysis, part
2. Agronomy 9:1149-1378. Am. Soc. Agron., Madison, Wis.

Campbell, C.A. and W. Souster. 1982. Loss of organic matter and potentially
mineralizable nitrogen from Saskatchewan soils due to cropping. Can. J. Soil Sci.
62:651-655.

Campbell, C.A., G.P. Lafond, A.J. Leyshon, R.P. Zentner, and H.H. Janzen. 1991.
Effect of cropping practices on the initial potential rate of N mineralization in a
thin Black Chernozem. Can. J. Soil Sci. 71: 43-53.

Carter J.N., D.T. Westermann, M.E. Jensen, and S.M. Bosma. 1975. Predicting N
fertilizer needs for sugar beets from residual NO3 and mineralizable nitrogen. J.
Am. Soc. of Sugar Beet Tech. 18:232-244.

Carter, MR. and DA. Rennie. 1982. Changes in soil quality under zero tillage farming
systems: Distribution of microbial biomass and mineralizable C and N potentials.
Can. J. Soil Sci. 62:587-597.

Chae, Y.M. and M.A. Tabatabai. 1986. Mineralization of nitrogen in soils amended with
organic wastes. J. Environ. Qual. 15:193-198.

Doran, J. W. 1980. Soil microbial and biochemical changes associated with reduced
tillage. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 44:765-771.

Gharous, R.L., R.L. Westerman, and RN. Soltanpour. 1990. Nitrogen mineralization
potential of arid and semiarid soils of Morocco. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 54:438-443.

6

Herlihy, M. 1979. Nitrogen mineralization in soils of varying texture, moisture and
organic matter. 1. Potential and experimental values in fallow soils. Plant Soil
53:255-267.

Hills, EL, and A. Ulrich. 1971. Nitrogen nutrition. pp.111-135. In R.T. Johnson et al.
(eds.) Advances in sugar beet production: Principles and practices. The Iowa State
University Press, Ames, Iowa.

Johnston, A.E. 1986. Soil organic matter effects on soils and crops. Soil Use
Management. 2:97-105.

Odell, R.T., S.W. Melstead and W.M. Walker 1984. Changes of organic carbon and
nitrogen of Morrow Plot soils under treatments, 1904-1973. Soil Sci. 137:160-
171.

Stanford G. and 8.]. Smith. 1972. Nitrogen mineralization potentials of soils. Soil Sci.
Soc. Am. Proc. 36:465-472.

Stanford, G., and S]. Smith. 1976. Estimating potentially mineralizable soil nitrogen
from chemical index of soil nitrogen availability. Soil Sci 122: 71-76.

Talpaz, H., P. Fine, and B. Bar-Yasef. 1981. On the estimation of the N-mineralization
parameters from incubation experiments. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 45:993-996.

CHAPTER H

LITERATURE REVIEW

Nitrogen Availability Indices:

Nitrogen available for crops is derived from numerous sources; predominantly
from fertilizer, biological N ﬁxation and mineralization of organic N from wastes, crop
residues and soil organic matter. Total N in the surface soils ranges from 0.08 T0 0.4%
and if 1 to 3% of this N is mineralized in a growing season (Bremner, 1965a, 1965b) only
8 to 120 kg of N ha’1 may be available for crop utilimtion, which is not sufﬁcient for most
agronomic crops. Increasing needs of food by the growing world population led to
extensive use of chemical fertilizers which may result in environmental contamination and
at times low crop quality. Economic, environmental and crop quality problems associated
with extensive fertilizer N use required a method that will provide a satisfactory index of
soil-N availability and will permit reasonably accurate prediction of the fertilizer N
requirements for crop production.

Many proposed biological and chemical methods have been considered in an effort
to provide an index of soil N availability. In an extensive review, Bremner (1965b)

discussed the advantages and disadvantages associated with these methods. Biological

8

methods appear to be the most useful since N mineralization is biologically regulated.
However, the methods are tedious, expensive and subject to variation due to sample
pretreatment. Chemical methods are highly empirical, yet relatively inexpensive and less
affected by sample pretreatment. The accuracy of any method is measured by the
magnitude of the correlation coefﬁcient between uptake of N in some vegetative test and

laboratory results or correlation with previously established methods.

The most satisfactory methods currently available for assessing the potential ability
of a soil to provide N for crop growth are those involving estimation of the mineral-N
formed when soil is incubated under conditions which promote mineralization of soil-N.
These methods are expected to give a fairly accurate index of the available N because in
these methods micro-organisms are responsible for release of mineral N, just as they make
organic soil-N available for crop growth during growing season. The validity of these
methods have been conﬁrmed by many researchers (Black et al., 1947 ; Pritchett et al.,
1948; Allison and Sterling, 1949; White et al., 1949; Pitts et al., 1953; Andharia et al.,
1953; Hanway and Dumenil, 1955; Munson and Stanford, 1955; Saunder et al., 1957;
Cook et al., 1957; Eagle and Matthews, 1958; Pritchett et al., 1959; Synghal et al., 1959;
Mackay et al., 1959, 1963; Olson et al., 1960; Clement and Williams, 1962; Gasser and
Williams, 1963; Keeney and Bremner, 1967; Comforth and Walmsley, 1971; Geist, 1977;
Wilson et al., 1994a).

Two methods which showed the greatest potential for success are the aerobic

9

method of Bremner (1965c) and the anaerobic method proposed by Waring and Bremner
(1964). The anaerobic method consists of measuring the amount of MN mineralized
after anaerobic incubation at 40 °C for 7 days. Keeney and Bremner (1966) established
that N released by anaerobic incubation at 40 °C was better correlated with uptake of N
by ryegrass than at 30 °C. Robinson (1967) modiﬁed the anaerobic method to allow for
steam distillation of a ﬁltered extract so as to prevent the alkaline hydrolysis of soil
organic matter. Several investigators have since compared the correlation coefﬁcients of
these methods with uptake of N in the greenhouse and found Correlation coefﬁcient
ranging from 0.57 to 0.93 (Hanway and Ozus, 1966; Kadirgamathoiyah and MacKenzie,
1970; Comforth, 1968; Smith, 1966; Ryan etal., 1971; Gasser and Kalembasa, 1976; and
Geist, 1977).

Smith and Stanford (1971) modiﬁed the method of Robinson (1967) by removing
residual mineral N with 0.01 M CaCl2 followed by incubation of the soil saturated with
a minus N nutrient solution at 35 0C for 14 and 28 days. The NH4 released was recovered
by a series of centrifugation and washings. Correlation between results obtained after a
4 week incubation by the above method and the aerobic method was higher (r = 0.93)
than the correlation obtained in 2 week incubations (r = 0.86). These results indicate that
long term incubation is a better indication of potentially mineralizable N since results
obtained in the ﬁrst two weeks may be affected by the presence of recent crop residues of
varying CIN ratio. Chickester et al. (1975) conﬁrmed that the presence of crop residue
with varying CIN ratios affect the degree of mineralization observed in short term

incubation.

10

Anaerobic incubation has many advantages over aerobic incubation: i) only NIL-N
needs to be measured, ii) problems with water content are eliminated, iii) more N is
measured in a given period and iv) a higher temperature can be used. This method has
the disadvantage of requiring a considerable period of time and special incubation
equipment and initial NO3-N needs to be determined separately if this is to be utilized in
fertilizer recommendations. Satisfactory correlation between N uptake and amount of N
mineralized in an anaerobic incubation for 6 to 14 days at 30 to 40 °C has been shown in
a large number of studies (Keeney and Bremner, 1966, 1967 ; Sims et al., 1967; Sims and
Blackmon, 1967; Cornsforth and Walmsley, 1971; Ryan et al., 1971; Gasser and
Kalembasa, 1976; Osborne and Storrier, 1976; Geist, 1977; Shumway and Atkinson,
1977;). Wilson et al. (1994b) compared anaerobic incubation for 7, 14 and 21 days with
N uptake by rice crop in the greenhouse and found signiﬁcant correlation. The 14 days
incubation predicted total N uptake better (r2 = 0.82) than 7 or 21 days incubation (r2 =

0.71 and 0.65 respectively).

Weds;

A number of chemieal methods have been used as indices of soil N availability and
have been reviewed by Bremner (1965b), Jenkinson (1968), Dahnke and Vasey (1973),
Campbell (1978) and Stanford (1982). The chemical indices have many advantages as
well as disadvantages over biological methods. A major disadvantage of chemical methods
is that they can not simulate microbial mineralization of N in the ﬁeld. But, chemical

methods are comparatively rapid, more convenient and generally more precise when

1 1
compared to biological methods.

The use of chemical methods as N availability indices lies primarily in
demonstrating a high degree of correlation with previously established methods or with
uptake of N in the ﬁeld or greenhouse. The chemical methods most commonly used
includes measurement of total N, mineral N, organic matter or measuring the N released
by extraction or treatment with various reagents.

One method which received major attention by researchers is hot-water or hot-salt
extractable total N or NH4-N. This test was ﬁrst proposed by Livens (1959). A good
correlation of this test with N uptake by ryegrass and with results of incubation procedures
was reported by Keeney and Bremner (1966). Other investigators have also reported a
strong correlation between hot water extractable N with other N indices or with
greenhouse tests (Jenkinson, 1968; Robinson, 1968c; Verstraeten et al., 1970; Ryan et al.,
1971; Iathwell et al., 1972; Gasser and Kalembasa, 1976; Osborne and Storrier 1976).

Stanford (1968) modiﬁed the hot water extraction method by extracting in 0.01 M
CaCl2 to provide a solution concentration similar to that occurring naturally in non-saline
soils. The N released was determined either by the Kjeldahl method or by distillation with
NaOH. Results obtained with both procedures were highly correlated. Stanford and co-
workers further simpliﬁed this method by using the autoclave (Stanford and Demar, 1969)
or the Conway microdiffusion technique (Smith and Stanford, 1971).

Stanford and Demar (1969) compared the autoclavable method with the anaerobic
method of Waring and Bremner (1964) and obtained a correlation coefﬁcient (r) of 0.94.

Smith and Stanford (1971) reported that the correlation between NH, released upon

12

autoclaving and N mineralized by the aerobic and anaerobic methods were different (I =
0.70 and 0.92, respectively). Smith et al. (1977) reported signiﬁcant correlation of ﬁeld
estimates of N mineralization potential with autoclavable NH, (r =' 0.86). Stanford and
Smith (1976) evaluated the 16 hour autoclave-Conway microdiffusion method by
comparing results of a large number of surface and subsurface samples with the N0 value
obtained by aerobic incubation. The chemical method was found highly related to N0 (r
= 0.92) on most soils except for a few highly calcareous soils. Fox and Piekielek (1978)
also reported a signiﬁcant relationship (r = 0.92) between autoclavable NH, and soil N
supplying capacity-

Another method ﬁrst proposed by Kresgeand Merkle (1957) in which NIL-N is
released on distillation with alkaline KMnO, has also been used as a N availability index
(Bremner, 1965b). Many researchers used this test and found a less satisfactory
relationship of available N indices with this test when compared to other chemical tests
(Jenkinson, 1968; Stanford and Legg, 1968; Comforth and Walmsley, 1971; Osborne and
Storrier, 1976; Stanford, 1978). Keeney and Bremner (1966) compared the NH,-N
released by alkaline KMnO, with N uptake by ryegrass and did not ﬁnd a signiﬁcant
relationship. By contrast Stanford and Leg (1968) reported a relatively good correlation
between this method and N uptake by oats grown in the green house.

Gianello and Bremner (1986), comparing the chemical methods of assessing
potentially available organic N in soil, concluded that the alkaline KMnO, extraction was
the least efﬁcient of any of the 12 chemieal methods they evaluated. The alkaline KMnO,

extractable NH,-N appears too variable and inconsistent to be a reliable indicator of

1 3
seasonal N release from soil organic matter.

Stanford (1978) proposed an alternative to the alkaline KMnO, procedure by
utilizing an acid environm'ent. He concluded, the acidiﬁed KMnO, method was more
precise than the alkaline KMnO, procedure. After comparing several combinations of
KMnO, and H280“ Stanford and Smith (1978) proposed that a mixture of 0.05 M KMnO,
and 0.5M H280, provided the best indicator of potentially mineralizable N.

A comparison of NH, released with NaOH distillation was made with NH, released
by the oxidant (measured as difference between NaOH and NaOH + KMnO,) and it was
found that the relationship of NH, to mineralizable N was similar with both procedures
(Stanford 1978).

Sahrawat (1980) reported that acidiﬁed K2CrZO7-extractable NH,-N was a good
index of potentially available N based on correlations with N uptake by rice grown under
greenhouse conditions. They also proposed a modiﬁcation of the Walkley-Black
procedure for determination of organic C (Walkley and Black, 1934) and potentially
available N from the same sample (Sahrawat, 1982). In this procedure, the sample was
analyzed for organic C as proposed by Walkley and Black except 0.5 M FeSO,-7H20 was
used as the titrant. Afterwards, an aliquot was then distilled and the NH, liberated was
used as an index of N availability.

Acid hydrolysis has also been used to estimate N availability by some researchers.
Purvis and Leo (1961) used dilute H280, to estimate potentially available N and obtained
a good correlation (r = 0.97) when compared to N uptake by wheat, while several others
have had little success (Keeney and Bremner, 1966; Prasad, 1965; Smith, 1966; Fox and

Piekielek, 1978b).

l4

Serna and Pomares (1992) evaluated four chemical methods (autoclave, 0.5 M
KMnO,, 6 M HCl and 0.01 M Nal-ICO3) for the determination of N-availability indices
and compared them with biological indices, i.e., plant N uptake and N mineralization
during 16-week aerobic incubation. These results indicated that the autoclavable and HCl
methods were more suitable for predicting N availability than the mo, and NaHCO3
methods. They also concluded that prediction of soil N availability to plants improved if
initial mineral N of soils and several chemical and biological methods were combined in
a multiple regression analysis.

In Arkansas, studies were conducted recently to correlate chemical methods of
estimating N mineralization with other laboratory indices (Wilson et al. , 1994a) and with
uptake in the greenhouse (Wilson et al. , 1994b). Among the chemical methods tested,
acidiﬁed KMnO, and acidiﬁed 1(2Cr'2O7 gave the best correlation with anaerobic
incubation. A signiﬁcant relationship between anaerobic incubation with HCl and oxalic
acid extraction was also reported. In the second experiment, NH,-N extracted with these
four chemical methods was compared with the total N uptake by rice in the greenhouse.
The best chemieal index of N availability was oxidation with acidiﬁed KMnO, (r2 = 0.75).
Extraction with HCl and acidiﬁed K2Cr207 were similar while oxalic acid extraction was

least effective method.

N Mineralization Potential:
Environmental and economic concerns of N fertilization in agriculture production

are the primary reasons that researchers look for a reliable method of estimating

15

potentially mineralizable N in the soil. A number of soil availability indices have been
proposed (discussed above) for determining the N-supplying abilities of soils. Most of
these methods measure amounts of soil organic N mineralized in short term incubations
or N extracted by various chemical reagents and provide estimates of relative rather than
potential soil N supply (Harmsen and Kolenbrander, 1965; Spencer et al. , 1966). These
indices of soil organic N availability provide no measure of mineral N already present;
e. g. , residual N from previous fertilization or soil N actually mineralized between harvest
and planting (Soper et al., 1971; Stanford and Legg, 1968).

In the 1970's, Stanford and co-workers (Stanford and Smith 1972, Stanford et al. ,
1973, Stanford and Smith, 1976, Stanford and Epstein, 1974) advanced the concept of
potentially mineralimble N denoted as NO and a related mineralization rate constant (k) for
use in characterizing soil available N.

Stanford and Smith (1972) suggested that the potentially mineralizable N (No) of
a soil and its rate constant could be estimated by incubating the soil at optimum conditions
and measuring the N mineralized and time of incubation. Nitrogen mineralization
potential is deﬁned as the amount of soil N that is susceptible to mineralization according
to ﬁrst order kinetics. N0 is calculated from the ﬁrst order equation:

-dn/dt = kN
Integrate from time 0 to t:
In N, - ln N0 = -kt

Taking antilogarithms:

Nt = No cXIX-kt)

16

The amount of inorganic N mineralized (Nah) is deﬁned as the difference between
the amount of mineralizable organic N at time 0 and at time t:
Nm = N0 - N,
or

Nmin = No ' No ex130’“) = Noll'eXP('kt)1

The amount of mineralized N accumulated after various time periods are measured
directly in laboratory incubation, and statistical techniques are used to estimate No and k
from the analytical data.

Since Stanford and Smith (1972) presented the concept of No and k it has been
used, modiﬁed and discussed in great detail by numerous researchers (Stanford et al. ,
1974, 1975, 1977; Smith et al., 1977; 1980; Oyanedel and Rodriguez, 1977; Campbell
et al., 1981; Marion et al., 1981; Mackay and Carefoot 1981; Campbell and Souster,
1982; Grifﬁn and Lain, 1983; Olness, 1983; Juma et al., 1984; Deans et al., 1986; Ellert
and Bettany, 1988; Boyle and Paul 1989; Gharous et al., 1990; Soudi et al., 1990).

Stanford and Epstein (1974) studied the relationship between soil water and soil N
mineralization. Results from nine soils with differing chemical and physical properties
showed highest N mineralization rates between matric potential of -0.01 to -0.033 MPa.
Water content higher or lower than this range decreased the N mineralization. Myers et
al. (1982) studied the quantitative relationship between net N mineralization and moisture
content of soils. Soil samples from 0-15 and 15-30 cm depths of ﬁve cultivated

Queensland soils and 32 virgin and cultivated western Canadian soils were incubated at a

1 7
range of moisture contents at 35 °C. Results showed that in most soils net N
mineralimtion was linearly related to moisture content in the available range (-0.03 to -4.0
MPa) . Optimum moisture for net N mineralization corresponded to a soil pore water
potential of between -0.01 and -0.031MPa, while that at which no net mineralization
occurred was close to -4.0 MPa.

The procedure for estimating net N mineralization proposed by Stanford and co-
workers was used to estimate the N0 and k values for 5 Queensland semi arid soils, each
incubated at 5 different temperatures (Campbell et al. , 1981). Results presented showed
N0 ranged from 97 ug N g‘1 of soil for subsoils to 250 for cultivated clayey surface soils.
No values were also found to be directly proportional to the total soil carbon while the
active N fraction (portion of organic matter that supplies a major portion of plant available
N) was found to be directly proportional to CBC. The rate constant value was directly
proportional to total C and increased with temperature to 40 °C. In another study,
Campbell et al. (1984) determined the Arrhenius relationship between rate constant and
absolute temperature for 33 virgin and cultivated Western Canadian prairies soils. Results
showed no signiﬁeant differences in Arrhenius relationships between soils within each soil
zone. Thus, a single Arrhenius equation was calculated for different soils in each zone.

Some efforts have also been made to relate the N mineralization to soil texture and
interesting results have been reported. Campbell and Souster (1982) studied twelve prairie
surface soils representing paired virgin and cultivated coarse, medium and ﬁne textured
soils to determine the losses of potentially mineralizable N and total organic matter due

to cultivation and related these losses to soil texture. Results showed that cropping caused

18

large losses of organic C and N. No values for virgin soils were much greater than
cultivated soils. Medium textured soils generally had the highest organic matter content
and potentially mineralizable N. El-Haris et al. (1983) studied the effects of tillage,
cropping, and fertilizer management on soil N mineralization potential in a long term crop
rotation experiment. Results indicated that NO values for fall samples were unaffected by
tillage or crop rotation but for spring samples it was signiﬁcantly higher for either chisel
plow or no till than for moldboard plow. Also peas-alfalfa-green manure followed by
alternate spring wheat-winter wheat had a signiﬁcantly higher NO than both continuous
winter wheat and winter wheat-pea rotation. Nitrogen mineralization potential increased
linearly with increasing N rate.

Soudi et al. (1990) studied N mineralization in semiarid soils of Morocco and
determined the rate constant variations with soil depth. The data presented in this study
have demonstrated the variability of N mineralization among the soils and the decrease of
mineralization rate with depth, which is attributed to decreased biodegradability of organic

compounds with depth.

11' 1.. 1111 'lllll‘

Accurate prediction of N mineralization in soils requires reliable parameters which
are determined in incubation experiments. The estimated values of the potentially
mineralizable organic N and the mineralization rate constant also depend on the
mathematical analysis of the incubation results. Considerable effort has been made

comparing mathematical models for calculating reliable estimates of N0 and k. Smith et

19

al. (1980) incubated soils of varying properties and made comparisons between the
nonlinear least square equation (NLLS) and the more traditional least square ﬁt of a
straight line to log transformed data, for estimating No and k values. The NLLS equation
gave a more precise ﬁt to the data and hence, more accurate esﬁmates of both the N
mineralization potential and the mineralization rate constant for each soil. Talpaz et al.
(1981) tried to estimate the No and k values for the data from published experimental
results by Stanford and Smith (1972) by using linear and nonlinear models. Both models
gave different values for N0 and k. They showed that non-linear regression is better than
the linear technique.

The procedure outlined by Stanford and Smith (1972) assumes that N
mineralization follows ﬁrst order kinetics and N0 and k are estimated with the assumption
that there is only one active fraction of soil organic matter, or that the one estimated is the
major active N pool. However, our knowledge shows there is more than one pool and
several researchers have attempted to deﬁne and quantify two or three pools.

Juma et al. (1984) conducted experiments to determine the most suitable
mathematical equation and the most appropriate method for calculating the values of the
parameters of the equation describing the net N mineralization in soil. The cumulative net
N mineralized in two treatments of 15N labelled soil and ﬁve unlabelled Saskatchewan soils

showed curvilinear trends that could be ﬁtted to either hyperbolic or ﬁrst order equations.

Deans et al. (1986) used single and double exponential equations to compare the

mineralization potential and rate constant values obtained from the data of several

20

published and unpublished studies. It was reported that a double exponential model more
closely ﬁts N mineralization data obtained from laboratory incubation studies. The single
exponential equation gave a systematic under estimation of No and over estimation of k.
The double exponential equation was more consistent in estimating rate constant and
showed smaller mean square error values. Beauchamp et al. (1986) conducted a
laboratory study to determine how soil pretreatment and cropping history affects the
kinetics of N mineralization. Results showed that net N mineralization followed ﬁrst order
kinetics regardless of pretreatment. However, air drying enhanced the N mineralization
during the ﬁrst 7 days of incubation. They suggested an amendment to the traditional ﬁrst
order model by including easily mineralized N fraction mostly released during the ﬁrst 7
days. This amended model gave a better ﬁt to the data. Bonde and Rosswell (1987) used
three different models (lst order, two component and a simpliﬁed special case of the two-
component model) to describe the data from an incubation study of soils from four
different cropping systems. The results showed that in all cases the special case of the two
component model offered the best description of the curves of accumulated mineral N.
Ellert and Bettany (1988) incubated several forested and cultivated soils for 37
weeks with intermittent leaching and evaluated several kinetic models for the ability to
accommodate, continuously decreasing rates, a large initial ﬂush of mineralization, a
mineralization lag phase or a constant rate of release near the end of incubation. They
found that commonly used kinetic models were incapable of describing a mineralization
pattern in all soils. Mineralization in the forest B horizon was best described by a

modiﬁed lst order model. Soils from a ﬁeld cultivated since 1905, a recently cleared ﬁeld

21

and the organic layer from native forest had ﬂuctuating mineralization rates which
appeared as lags in the cumulative amounts of inorganic N released over time. The lagged
mineralization pattern was best described by consecutive reaction or Gompertz models.
Fitting nonlinear kinetic models to incremental data from each incubation interval was
superior to conventional approaches which use cumulative data obtained by summing the

incremental observations.

The concept of N0 and k has been and still is being used widely to observe the
mineralization trend in soils with varying properties and under varying cultural and
management conditions. Chae and Tabatabai (1986) compared the mineralization of N in
soils amended with various sewage sludges, animal manures and plant materials. The soils
were incubated for 26 weeks with leaching every two weeks. The results showed that total
N mineralized from the organic waste material varied considerably, depending on the type
of soil and organic waste material.

Bonde and Rosswell (1987) incubated soils samples from four different cropping
system, collected at four different occasions during the growing season 13 weeks to
measure the potentially mineralizable N. A steady decline of mineralized N in all systems
from spring to harvest and a subsequent increase from harvest to autumn was reported.
The fact that the amount of mineralizable N decreases during the growing season and
increases in autumn as a result of organic matter input provides evidence for the existence

of an active fraction of soil organic matter. Large differences of No and k values were

22

found among cropping systems and sampling times.

Campbell et al. (1984) developed a N mineralization model by combining No with
functions representing the effects of temperature and moisture on k. This model performed
well in predicting the amount of N mineralized during a growing season when soil was
incubated in plastic bags placed in an incubator or buried in the ﬁeld. A similar model
was used to estimate the net N mineralized in situ from soil under 1) summer fallow 2)
cropped-dryland and 3) cropped irrigated conditions (Campbell et al. , 1988). The results
obtained from the model were compared to the in situ measured N mineralized during a
growing season. The model showed reasonably good agreement to the measured values.

Campbell (1991a) studied the effects of cropping practices on N mineralization.
The objective of this study was to determine whether the potentially mineralizable N
concept (Stanford and Smith, 1972) would provide a more sensitive parameter than total
soil or hydrolyzable amino-N for identifying and quantifying changes in the soil organic
matter quality resulting from commonly used cultural and management practices. The
effectiveness of the potentially mineralizable N concept for this purpose was examined
using data from a 30 year crop rotation study carried out on a Rego thin Black Chemozem
soil. In this study a parameter termed initial potential rate of N mineralization (Nok)
proved useful as an index for delineating the relative effects of cultural and management

practices on soil organic matter quality.

2 3
Cropping System Effects on Organic C, N and Crop Yields:

Crop rotations have been used as a management practice for decades. The
beneﬁcial affects of crop rotation on soil properties and crop yields have been reported by
many researchers (Robinson, 1966; Adams et al., 1970; Cooper, 1971; Brawand and
Hossner, 1976; Baldock et al., 1981; Odell et al., 1984; Johnston, 1986; Zielke and
Christenson, 1986; Hesterman et al., 1987; Peterson and Varvel, 1989; Havlin et al.,
1990; Varvel and Peterson, 1990; Campbell et al., 1991a, 1991b). The beneﬁts of crop
rotation over continuous cropping are generally related to addition of legumes in crop
rotation or inclusion of crops with large amounts of residue.

Fertilizer N recommendau'ons require an estimate of N available from the previous
crop to avoid over or under fertilization. Different crop sequences contribute different
amounts of N to the succeeding crop. Hence, the amount of fertilizer required for a
certain crop will vary with the cropping system. Many researchers studied the effects of
crop rotation in combination with N fertilizer rates on crop yields. Studies (Welch, 1979;
Heichel and Barnes, 1984; and Nafziger and Mulvaney, 1984) reported that the optimum
rate of N applied for cereal crop production is lower when following soybean than
following other crops. Janzen (1987) studied the effects of long term cropping affects on
soil organic matter characteristics in a spring wheat rotation. They found that distribution
of organic N and C among labile and stable pools was strongly affected by crop rotation.
levels of mineralizable N and C in a continuous wheat treatment were approximately
twice those in the fallow-wheat rotation. Also N mineralization in the forage legume

rotation was less than in the continuous wheat treatment.

24

In a series of experiments Peterson and Varvel (1989) studied the effects of crop
rotation and fertilizer N on (i) soybean, (ii) sorghum and (iii) corn, yields grown on a
Sharpsburg silty clay loam in Nebraska. In one of these experiments, soybean grown in
monoculture was compared with soybean grown in rotation with corn, sorghum or
sorghum + clover. The rotation in which soybean followed sorghum produced a higher
yield than soybean following corn. In a second experiment, grain sorghum in rotation
gave higher yields than when grown in continuous system. Continuous sorghum showed
a greater response to applied N than sorghum in rotation. Also in the same series of
experiments, corn grown following soybean produced maximum grain with only 90 kg N
ha'1 while continuous corn required at least 180 kg N ha" for maximum yield.

Campbell et al. (1991a) compared the effects of legume rotation on quantity and
quality of soil organic C with continuous cropping and fertilizer N. A 6-year rotation
including 1 year of fallow, 2 years of spring wheat and 3 years of bromegrass and alfalfa
had a greater quantity of soil organic N relative to that of unfertilized continuous wheat,
but they were equivalent to that of fertilized continuous wheat. Campbell et al. (1991b)
also studied the effects of long term crop rotation on total soil N and the amount and
quality of hydrolyzable amino compounds. Results showed that a fallow monoculture
wheat rotation and unfertilized continuous wheat failed to maintain soil N. A 3-year
legume green manure-wheat-wheat system maintained soil N while a 6-year fallow-cereal-
hay and fertilized continuous wheat system increased soil N.

In another study (Bagayoko et al. , 1992), continuous soybean and sorghum were

compared with soybean-sorghum rotation. Results indicated that soybean in crop rotation

 

25

can contribute soil NO3-N and consequently increase yield. Plots with soybean as the
previous crop had 44 to 50 kg ha" more NOS-N in the soil proﬁle than did plots with
continuous sorghum. The grain sorghum yield in rotation plots was also signiﬁcantly
higher than continuous cropping system plots. Bundy et al. (1993) studied the corn
response to applied N in several crop sequences involving corn and soybean. Results
indicated that com yields and N uptake were higher in rotation than continuous cropping,
which indicated the need to adjust N fertilizer recommendations for corn in soybean-com
system to avoid over use of fertilizer.

Mohammed and Clegg (1993) studied the effects of pearl millet-soybean rotation
on millet productivity. Millet grain yield increased when grown after soybean and the
yield increase was equivalent to that obtained with 45 kg ha'1 of applied N. Percent N in
various plant parts and N uptake by millet also increased when grown after soybean crop.
Residual NO3-N in the soil proﬁle was also higher in the rotation treatment.

In addition to legumes in the rotation, the quality and quantity of residues added
to the soil from the previous crop are another beneﬁcial effect of crop rotations on soil
properties and succeeding crop yield. Crop residue management inﬂuences the availability
of N. When crop residues low in N are incorporated, immobilization of residual mineral
N remaining in the soil after harvest occurs. After maximum immobilization,
mineralization of the immobilized N occurs resulting in a net release of N (Allison and
Klein, 1962).

Crops like corn leaving larger quantities of residue are more beneﬁcial in the

rotation than the crops which leave smaller amounts of residue. Several studies reported

26

the direct relationship between crop residues added and C and N of soil. Larson et al.
(1972) reported that soil organic C was linearly related to the quantity of residues added
and that 5 Mg ha1 of corn or alfalfa residues were needed to maintain initial organic C
content. Rasmussen et al. (1980) also reported a similar response in Nebraska.

Havlin et al. (1990) studied the crop rotation and tillage effects on soil organic C
and N. Results of these studies showed increased organic C and N with sorghum rotation
compared to continuous beans and this increase was directly related to the amount of
residues added. Collins et al. (1992) also measured changes in C and N status of soil due
to long term crop rotation. Treatments include wheat straw incorporated, wheat-fallow,
wheat straw + barnyard manure. Total soil C and N contents were signiﬁcantly greater

in annual crop compared to wheat-fallow rotations.

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36

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CHAPTER III

Nitrogen Mineralization Potential As Affected By

Cropping System

Increased agriculture production as well as maintenance and protection of our natural
resources like soil and water is a concern of agricultural scientists. But need for food for a
rapidly increasing world population along with growing concern about environmental quality
and long term productivity of agroecosystems has emphasized the need to develop and
implement management strategies for soil and agriculture systems.

Nitrogen availability for crop production is dependent on management practices.
Organic matter and chemical fertilizers are the main sources of N for crop production. The
maintenance of the quality and quantity of organic matter through residue management and
emcient use of fertilizer N improves the economy of production and reduces the risk of
pollution.

Management practices like tillage, crop rotation and quantity of residue returned
inﬂuences the soil organic matter levels. Larson et al. (1972) reported that soil organic
carbon was linearly related to the quantity of residues added and that 5 Mg ha'1 of corn or

alfalfa residues were needed to maintain the initial organic C content. Rasmussen et al.

38

39

(1980) also reported similar estimates.

Several long term studies have evaluated the beneﬁcial eﬂ‘ects of crop rotation,
especially inclusion of legume craps in the rotation, on soil organic matter content and on
crop productivity (Odell et al., 1984; Johnston, 1986; Zielke and Christenson, 1986; Havline
et al., 1990). Nitrogen released during the microbial decomposition of organic matter is the
key process in rendering N available for plant growth (Rosswall, 197 6; Ellenberg, 1977; Lee
and Stewart, 1978).

The crop fertilizer N requirement is a function of many factors. Among these are
residual and mineralizable soil N and those elements of crop and soil management that
inﬂuence the fraction of total N that is in a readily mineralizable form (Stanford and Smith,
1972;1976)

Eﬁcient use of fertilizer N requires an estimate of the exact amount needed for a crop.
This estimate can only be obtained if we know the amount of N needed by the crop and the
amount supplied by the soil from residual N and through microbial decomposition of the
organic residues.

Stanford and coworkers (Stanford and Smith, 1972; Stanford et al., 1973; Stanford
and Epstein, 1974) proposed a method for predicting N mineralized from soil organic matter.
In this method soils are incubated in the laboratory under optimal conditions of moisture and
temperature and net N mineralized is measured. The mineralization process is usually
expressed by the ﬁrst order rate equation and N mineralization potential (No) and rate
constant of mineralization (k) are estimated by an iterative statistics.

Nitrogen mineralization potential has been widely used as a means to determine the

4o

eﬂ‘ects of various agricultural practices on soil fertility, such as N fertilization, tillage, crop
rotation and mamrre additions (Doran, 1980; Campbell and Souster, 1982; Carter and Rennie,
1982; El-Halis et al., 1983; Griﬁn and Laine, 1983; Beauchamp et al., 1986; Bonde and
Rosswall, 1987; Janzen, 1987; Havlin et al., 1990; Varvel and Peterson, 1990; Aulakh et al.,
1991; Collins et al., 1992).

Most authors have considered NO to be characteristic for a certain cropping system
and soil and have not investigated possible seasonal patterns. If No is considered to measure
an equivalent of active ﬁaction of soil organic matter, then seasonal ﬂuctuations should occur.
Some workers in this regard have shown seasonal ﬂuctuation of N0 values. Bonde and
Rosswall (1987) found that differences of N0 values due to sampling time were as high as
diﬂ‘erences between cropping systems. El-Halis et al. (1983) found N0 values to be twice as
high when soils were sampled in mid-September as when sampled in mid-March. The spring
k values were a factor three greater than those ﬁom autumn. Stanford et al. (1977) also
found a 20% reduction in No values for a number of soils when April sampling was compared
with September.

The objectives of this study were to: (i) compare the relative eﬁ‘ects of several
cropping systems including sugarbeet in various combinations with corn, dry beans and
foragelegumes on mineralized N, nitrogen mineralization potential and rate constant of

mineralization and (ii) compare the effects of sampling time on N mineralization.

 

41

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Study Area:

This experiment was a part of the long term cropping system study conducted on a
Misteguay silty clay soil (Aeric Haplaquepts). A detailed description of the study is given by
Christenson et al. (1991). The cropping systems selected for this study were com-com-
sugarbeets (CCB), com-navy beans-sugarbeets (CBeB), navy beans-navy beans-sugarbeets
(BeBeB), oats-navy beans-sugar beets (OBeB) from the 1992 study while one more system,
oats alfalfa-navy beans-sugar beets (OABeB) was also included for 1993. The experiment
in the ﬁeld was arranged as a randomized complete block design with four replications. Each

plot was subdivided into subplots for four N fertilizer treatments (0, 45, 90, 135 kg N ha").

Soil Sampling:

Soil samples from the zero N plots were collected twice during the growing season.
The ﬁrst samples were collected at the time of planting and second in August. All samples
were collected to a depth of 20 cm and each consisted of 20 probes per plot. Samples were
air dried, ground, sieved through a 2-mm screen and stored in air tight glass bottles for latter

analyses.

Laboratory Incubation Study:
A modiﬁed aerobic incubation procedure, based on the principles and methods
outlined by Stanford and Smith (1972) and Campbell et al., (1992) was used to measure

mineralizable N and the mineralization rate constant. Ten g of air dried soil mixed with 20

42

g of acid washed quartz sand was incubated in small plastic tubes at 30 °C temperature and
100% relative humidity. Soil moisture content was established at approximately -0.03 MPa
by adding 5 ml of water to each tube and the moisture level was maintained by adding water
to bring the tubes to predetermined weights.

Soil in separate tubes was used for each incubation period of 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32,
and 40 weeks. The tubes containing soils were arranged in the incubator in a randomized
complete block design with four replications corresponding to replications in the ﬁeld study.

At the end of each incubation period soil NO3 and NH, were extracted by shaking soil
in the tubes with 100 ml of M KCl (Bremner, 1965a) for one hour and ﬁltering through
rinsed Whatman no. 40 ﬁlter paper. The ﬁlterate was analyzed for N02 plus NO3 and NH,

by using a ﬂow-through injection system (Am. Public Health Assoc, 1981).

Organic Carbon Determination:

Organic C was determined by Walkley and Black wet combustion with chromic acid
(Walkley and Black, 1934; Walkley, 1935, 1947). Ten ml of N K2020, was added to 1.5 g
of soil in a 500 ml Erlenmeyer ﬂask followed by addition of 20 ml concentrated H2S0,. The
sample was allowed to digest and cool for 30 minutes. Then 170 ml distilled water and 3
drops of ferrion (1,10-orthphenanthroline ferrous sulfate) were added and the sample was
titrated to a maroon end point using 0.5 N Fe(NH,)2(SO,)2. Results of duplicate

determinations were calculated as % organic C in air dry soil.

43
Total Nitrogen:

Total N in the soil samples was determined by the micro-Kjeldahl method described
by Bremner (1965b). One gram of soil ground to pass through 0.25-mm sieve was digested
for 5 hours in 3 ml of concentrated I-IQSO, containing 1.5g K280, + 15 mg Se. After cooling,
each sample received 20 ml of water. Ammonia was released by alkaline distillation, collected
in H3BO3 and titrated with standard sulfuric acid using methyl purple as the end point

indicator.

Calculations:

Two models were used to describe the data of this study. The ﬁrst model utilized was
the ﬁrst-order exponential equation describing net N mineralization proposed by Stanford and
Smith (197 2):

N = N0[1 - exp(-kt)]
where N is mineralized N in time t, and N0 and k are the N-mineralization potential and rate
constant values.

The second model used was the hyperbolic equation proposed by Juma et al. (1984):

N = Not/( T c+t) A
In this equation T c is the half time for mineralization and is related to the rate constant k by

the following:

All other terms are as described above.

A Systat nonlinear least-squares regression program was used to evaluate N0 and k

in both models (Wilkinson, 1986).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Total N and Oxidizable Carbon:

Total N and oxidizable C for soils from various cropping systems are given in Table
1. Results indicated that the cropping system and sampling time interaction was not
signiﬁcant. However, signiﬁcant diﬂ‘erences in total N (1992 samples only) and organic C
(1992 and 1993 samples) were found among cropping systems. Time of sampling did not
Show signiﬁcant diﬂ’erences. The total N values ranged from 1.45 to 1.65 g kg‘1 with the
lowest for BeBeB system and highest for CCB during both years. The organic C values
ranged ﬁ'om 9.94 to 12.6 g kg". The concentration was highest for CCB and lowest for

BeBeB.

Nitrogen Mineralization:

Cumulative N mineralized during a period of 40 weeks for soil samples taken during
1992 and 1993 is shown graphically in Figures 1-4. The general trend for cumulative N
mineralized was similar for all cropping systems at both sampling dates and for both years.
The rate of mineralization was rapid in the beginning of the incubation and declined with time.
The range of mineralized N was from 74 to 111 mg kg'1 of soil. The lowest quantity was
observed in soils ﬁom BeBeB system for both years and highest in CBeB during 1992 and
OABeB during 1993. Sampling time had no signiﬁcant eﬂ‘ect on cumulative mineralized N,

which is contrary to the ﬁndings of Bonde and Rosswall (1987). The possible reasons for

:r_-mil1

45
diﬁ‘erences might be due to diﬂ'erences in soil type, diﬁ'erent cropping sequences, duration of
incubation or climatic conditions.

The statistical analysis for the No values showed an insigniﬁcant interaction between
cropping systems and sampling date in both 1992 or 1993 (Tables 2 and 3). However, there
were signiﬁcam diﬂ‘erences among cropping systems in both years. N0 values obtained by the
exponential model ranged from 72 to 101 mg kg" and ﬁom 87 to 137 mg kg" by the
hyperbolic model. The highest values of No were obtained in the CCB system while the
lowest values occured in the BeBeB system. The values for both sampling dates were not
signiﬁcantly different, which is contrary to the ﬁndings of other researchers (El-Hart's et al.
1983; Stanford et al. 1977; Bonde and Rosswall, 1987). It is clear from the results that
nitrogen mineralization potential was higher in the cropping system where larger amounts of
residues were added back to the soil. The cropping systems studied in this experiment can
be arranged as CCB = OABeB > CBeB = OBeB = BeBeB based on the No values.

The rate constant of mineralization (k) estimated by the exponential model ranged
from 0.069 to 0.159 week", while it ranged from 0.044 to 0.081 week" when calculated with
hyperbolic model (Table 2 and 3). The k values did not show any consistent change due to
cropping system, but it is apparent from the results that NO and k values have a reciprocal

relationship. The higher No value corresponds to lower k values and visa-versa.

Exponential vs Hyperbolic:
The No and k values in this study were estimated by both exponential and hyperbolic

models. Data in Tables 2 and 3 indicate that No values estimated by exponential model were

46

lower than those estimated with hyperbolic model, while this relationship was opposite for
k value.

The comparison between two models can best be made using the instantaneous rate
of reactions (the slope of the line) for each model. The instantaneOus rate of reaction for
exponential model was computed by the equation:

dN/dt = N0 * k exp(-kt)
while for hyperbolic model it was computed as:
ledt + No * T,3/(Tc+t)2

The rate of reaction computed by the two equations for each soil are highly correlated
for each period of incubation with r2 values ranging from 0.86 to 1.00 (Table 4 and 5) which
supports the previous research that both models can be successﬁrlly used to estimate reliable
N0 and k values (Juma et al., 1984; Gharous et al., 1990).

An important aspect is that although No values calculated by the two models were
different, the rate of change was similar with both models. The order of ranking for cropping

systems based on No values remained similar with both models.

The Active Nitrogen Fraction:

The active N ﬁaction is considered the portion of organic matter that supplies a major
part of the plant available N for crop growth. It is represented by No/N, where N, is total N
concentration of soil. The values for active N fraction (Table 2 and 3) ranged from 5 to 7%
for the exponential model and 5 to 9% for the hyperbolic model. Again, the highest values

for the active N fraction were found for the cropping systems where higher amounts of crop

 

47

residues were returned to the soil. Number one in rank was CCB followed by OABeB,
CB eB, OBeB and BeBeB. However, these diﬂ'erences in active N ﬁ'action values among

cropping system were not signiﬁcant statistically.

CONCLUSION

Results of this study proves that diﬁ‘erences of N0 and active N ﬁ'action do exist
among the cropping systems. Therefore, it is important to study soils for N mineralization
trend periodically for making accurate prediction of the fertilizer N requirement. The
assumption that sampling time might be eﬂ‘ecting the N mineralization trend could not be
proven in this study. A very high correlation between the exponential and the hyperbolic
model for N0 and k values was observed in this study. This supported earlier reports that a
single exponential model as well as a hyperbolic model can be used to describe N mineralized,
mineralization potential, and active N ﬁ'action in soil. (Juma et al., 1984: Gharous et al.,

1990)

LIST OF REFERENCES

American Public Health association. 1981. Standard methods for examination of water and
waste water, 1981. 15th ed Am Public Health Assoc, Washington, DC.

Aulakh, M.S., J.W. Doran, D.T. Walters, AR Mosier, and DD. Francis. 1991. Crop residue
type and placement eﬂ'ects on denitriﬁcation and mineralization. Soil Sci. Soc. Am.
J. 55:1020-1025.

Beauchamp E.G., W.D. Reynolds, D. Brasche-Villeneuve, and K. Kirby. 1986. Nitrogen
mineralization kinetics with diﬁ‘erent soil pretreatment and cropping histories. Soil.
Sci. Soc. Am J. 50:1478-1483.

Bonde, TA, and T. Rosswall. 1987. Seasonal variation of potentially mineralizable nitrogen
in four cropping systems. Soil. Sci. Soc. Am J. 51:1508-1514.

Bremner, J. M. 1965a. Inorganic forms of nitrogen In C. A Black jet al. (ed) Methods of
soil analysis, Part 2. Agronomy 9:1179-1237. Am. Soc. Agron., Madison, Wis.

Bremner, J. M. 1965b. Nitrogen availability indexes. In C. A Black et al. (ed) Methods of
soil analysis, Part 2. Agronomy 9: 1324-1345. Am. Soc. Agron., Madison, Wis.

Campbell, CA, and W. Souster. 1982. Loss of organic matter and potentially mineralizeable
nitrogen from Saskatchewan soils due to cropping. Can. J. Soil Sci. 62:651-655.

Campbell, CA, B.H Ellert, and Y.W. Jame. 1992. Nitrogen mineralization potential in soils.
In. Soil sampling and methods of analysis. MR Carter (ed) Can. Soc. Soil Sci. 341-
349.

Carter, MR, and DA Rennie. 1982. Changes in soil quality under zero tillage farming
systems: Distribution of microbial biomass and mineralizable C and N potentials. Can.
J. Soil Sci. 62:587-597.

Christenson, DR, C.E. Bricker, and RS. Gallagher. 1991. Crop yields as aﬂ‘ected by
cropping system and rotation. Michigan State Univ. Agric. Exp. Sta. Res. Rep. 516.

48

49

Collins, H.P., P.E. Rasmussen, and CL. Douglas, Jr. 1992. Crop rotation and residue
management eﬁ‘ects on soil carbon and microbial dynamics. Soil. Sci. Soc. Am. J.
56:783-788.

Doran, J .W. 1980. Microbial changes associated with residue management with reduced
tillage. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 44:518-524.

Ellenberg, V.H. 197 7. Stickstoﬁ‘ als Standortsfaktor, inber sonder fur mitteleuropaische
Pﬂanzengesellschaften. Plant soil. 1221-22.

El-Haris, M.K., V.L. Cochran, L.F. Elliot, and DP. Bezdicek. 1983. Eﬂ‘ect of tillage,
cropping and fertilizer management on soil nitrogen mineralization potential. Soil Sci.
Soc. Am. J. 47:1157-1161.

Griﬁn, GE, and AF. Laine. 1983. Nitrogen mineralization in soils previously amended with
organic wastes. Agron. J. 75: 124-129.

Havlin J .L., D.E. Kissel, L.D. Moaddux, M.M. Claassen, and J.H. Long. 1990. Crop rotation
and tillage eﬂ‘ects on soil organic carbon and nitrogen. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 54:448-
452.

J anzen, H.H. 1987. Soil organic matter characteristics after long-term cropping to various
spring wheat rotations. Can. J. Soil Sci. 67:845-855.

Johnston, AE. 1986. Soil organic matter eﬁ‘ects on soils and crops. Soil Use Management.
2297-105.

Juma, N.G., E.A Paul, and B. Mary. 1984. Kinetic analysis of net nitrogen mineralization in
soil. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 482753-757.

Larson, W.E., C.E. Clapp, W.H. Pierre, and YB. Morachan. 1972. Eﬂ‘ect of increasing
amounts of organic residues on continuous com. 11. Organic carbon, nitrogen,
phosphorous, and sulﬁrr. Agron. J. 64:204-208. ‘

Lee, J .A, and GR Stewart. 1978. Ecological aspects of nitrogen assimilation. Adv. Bot.
Res. 621-43.

Odell, RT., S.W. Melstead, and W.M. Walker 1984. Changes of organic carbon and
nitrogen of Morrow Plot soils under treatments, 1904-1973. Soil Sci. 137: 160-171.

Rasmussen, P.E., RR Allmaras, RC. Rhode, and NC. Roager, Jr. 1980. Cropresidue
inﬂuences on soil carbon and nitrogen in a wheat-fallow system. Soil Sci. Soc. Am.
J. 442596-600.

50

Roswall, T. 1976. The internal nitrogen cycle between microorganisms, vegetation and soil.
Ecol. Bull. 222157-167.

Stanford G. and S. J. Smith. 1972. Nitrogen mineralization potentials of soils. Soil Sci. Soc.
Am Proc. 36: 465-472.

Stanford, G., J .O Legg, and S]. Smith. 1973. Soil N availability evaluations based on
nitrogen mineralization potentials of soils and uptake of labeled and unlabeled N by
plants. Plant Soil 39:113-124.

Stanford, G., and E. Epstein 1974. Nitrogen mineralization-water relations in soils. Soil Sci.
Soc. Am. Proc. 38:103-108.

Stanford, G., and 8.]. Smith. 1976. Estimating potentially mineralizable soil nitrogen ﬁ'om
chemical index of soil nitrogen availability. Soil Sci. 1222 71-76.

Stanford,G., J .N. Carter, D.T. Westermann, and J .J . Meisinger. 1977. Residual nitrate and
mineralizable soil nitrogen in relation to nitrogen uptake by irrigated sugarbeets.
Agron. J. 692303-308.

Varvel GE, and TA Peterson 1990. Residual soil nitrogen as aﬂ‘ected by continuous, two-
year and four-year crop rotation systems. Agron J. 822958-962.

Walkley, A, and IA Black. 1934. An examination of the Degtjareff method for determining
soil organic matter, and a modiﬁcation of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Sci.
37229-38.

Walkley, A, 1935. An estimation of methods for determining organic carbon and nitrogen
in soils. J. Agric. Sci. 25:588-609.

Walkley, A 1947. A critical examination of a rapid method for determining organic carbon
in soils-eﬂ'ect of variation in digestion condition and of inorganic soil constituents.
Soil Sci. 63:251-264.

erkinson, LS. 1986. The system for statistics. Systat, Inc., Evanston, IL.

Zielke RC., and DR Christenson. 1986. Organic carbon and nitrogen changes in soil under
selected cropping systems. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 50:363-367.

51

Table 1. Total N and oxidizable C concentration in soils
from the cropping system study, 1992 and 1993.

 

 

Cropping Sample ____Igtal_u___ .9sisiaahls_s_
System Date 1992 1993 1992 1993
-------------- g kg’T.---—-—-—-———-—
CCB May 1.64 1.54 12.4 10.9
CBeB May 1.58 1.48 11.9 10.3
BeBeB May 1.45 1.47 10.7 10.1
ones May 1.52 1.48 11.6 10.1
OABeB May - 1.53 - 10.8
cca Aug 1.65 1.57 12.8 10.8
CBeB Aug 1.58 1.47 11.8 9.81
BeBeB Aug 1.46 1.46 11.1 9.94
ones Aug 1.51 1.47 11.6 10.1
OABeB Aug - 1.57 - 10.6
LSD (0.05)* N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S.
8 o to
greening_ﬁzassn
cca 1.65 1.55 12.6 10.9
CBeB 1.58 1.48 11.9 10.0
BeBeB 1.45 1.47 10.9 9.94
ones 1.52 1.48 11.6 10.0
OABeB - 1.55 - 10.7
LSD (0.05) 0.107 N.S. 0.946 0.59
M
May 1.55 1.51 11.6 10.4
Aug 1.55 1.51 11.8 10.2
LSD (0.05) N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S.

 

TTComparison of two cropping systems within on sampling
date.

 

5 ~ 3 C.N.

52

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CHAPTER IV

Nitrogen Mineralization Potential of Soils from

Michigan's Saginaw Valley and Thumb Region.

Nitrogen, an essential component of any crop production system, is under criticism
for its potential hazard to our environment and secondly, for economic reasons due to
increasing cost of fertilizer in many developing countries of the world. Eﬁcient use of N
fertilizer for crop production improves the economic returns to the producers and decreases
the potential risk of polluting the environment especially water resources.

The most important aspect in efﬁcient fertilizer use is the estimation of the amount
of N fertilizer needed for the crop under a particular soil and environmental conditions. For
an accurate estimate of the amount of fertilizer needed by the crop, one must know the
amount of N supplied by the soil. The amount of N derived from the soil depends on the
initial residual N present in the soil at planting and the mineralization of soil organic N
through microbial decomposition of organic residues during crop growth (Cassman and
Munns, 1980). Raidual N can easily be measured as extractable Nos-N and NIL-N in soil,

but N mineralized during the growing season, is diﬁcult to estimate (Cabrera and Kissel,

62

 

63

1988; and Cassman and Munns, 1980).

One method which provides an estimate of N supplying power of soils was proposed
by Stanford and co-workers (Stanford and Smith, 1972; Stanford et al. 1973; Stanford and
Epstein, 1974) and has been used by many others (Smith et al., 1977; Herlihy, 1979; Stanford
et aL, 1977; Oyanedel and Rodriguez 1977; Campbell and Souster, 1982; Griﬁn and Laine,
1983; Chae and Tabatabai, 1985; Bonde and Rosswall, 1987; Gharous et al., 1990; Campbell
et al. 1991).

Stanford and Smith (1972) incubated soils under optimal conditions to determine the
N mineralization potential (No) and rate constant (k) of soils. The No values in this method
are calculated based on the hypothesis that the rate of N mineralization is proportional to the
quantity of N comprising the mineralizable substrate. It is estimated by an iterative statistical
method Earn a ﬁrst order rate equation. Nitrogen mineralization rate was correlated to the
quantity of mineralizable N and the square root of time (Lindemann and Cardenas, 1984).
However, N0 values are aﬁ‘ected by many complex interactions of soil biological, chemical and
physical properties and environmental variables such as texture, organic matter, temperature
and moisture (Campbell et al., 1981; Herlihy, 1979).

The eﬂ‘ect of moisture on N-mineralization has been studied by many researchers and
varying results have been reported. Miller and Johnson (1964) reported optimum moisture
level to vary from -0.015 to -0.05 MPa while Stanford and Epstein (1974) found -0.0l to -
0.033 MPa to be optimal. In other experiments, Cassman and Munns (1980), Chiang et
al.(l983) and Myers et al. (1982) reported a moisture tension of 0.03 MPa for maximum

mineralization rate.

64

Temperatures within the range that are normally encountered under ﬁeld conditions
have also been found to profoundly aﬁ‘ect soil N mineralization. Cassman and Munns (1980)
found the optimum temperature for N mineralization to be from 30 to 35 °C. In an other
ermeriment, Stanford et al. (1973) found similar mineralization rates in diﬂ‘erent soils for each
temperature studied in the range of 5 to 35 °C.

Soil texture has also been reported to aﬁ'ect the soil organic matter content and hence
mineralizable and total N are subject to change too. Bremner (1965) reported that total N
increased as texture became ﬁner. Campbell and Souster (1982) and .Herlihy (1979) also
reported lower organic matter, potentially mineralizable N and the active N fraction in coarse
textured soils.

The objective of this study was to determine the N mineralization potential, rate
constant and instantaneous rate of reaction for a number of soils from Saginaw Valley and
Thumb region of Michigan. Also exponential and hyperbolic models were compared to

calculate N0 and k values for each soil.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Soils under Study

Michigan's Saginaw Valley and Thumb area consists of soils formed from glacial till
parent material with pockets of lacustrine material and consists of soils with a range of
physical, chemical and biological properties. The texture of soils range from very ﬁne to

medium and coarse material. Some physical and biological properties of these soils may have

65

been aﬁected by the kind and intensity of management including length of time under
cultivation.
In this study 23 soils were selected representing 9 diﬂ‘erent soil series. The

classiﬁcation and selected physico-chemical properties of soils are given in Table 1.

Soil Sampling:

The soils used in this study were from the ﬁelds that were under fertilizer rate
experiments during the years of 1989 to 1992. Soil samples were collected from the 0 to 20
cm depth in the control plot at planting time in spring. The samples were air dried, sieved

through a 2-mm sieve and stored in air tight glass bottles.

Laboratory Incubation Study:

A modiﬁed aerobic incubation procedure based on the principles and methods outlined
by Stanford and Smith (1972) and Campbell et al. (1992) was used to measure mineralizable
N and mineralization rate constant. Ten g of air dried soil mixed with 20 g of acid washed
quartz sand was incubated in small centriﬁrge tubes at 30 °C and 100% relative humidity.
Moisture content was established at approximately -0.03 MPa by adding 5 ml of water to
each tube. Moisture content was maintained by adding water to bring the tubes to the
predetermined weights.

Soil in separate tubes was used for each incubation period of O, 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 20, 28,
and 44 weeks. The tubes containing soils were arranged in the incubator in a randomized

complete block design with four replications. Replications in the laboratory correspond to

6 6
the respective replications from the ﬁeld studies.
At the end of each incubation period the mineral N was extracted by shaking the soil
in the tubes with 100 ml of M KCl (Bremner, 1965) for one hour on a mechanical shaker and
ﬁltering through rinsed Whatman no. 40 ﬁlter paper. The ﬁltrate was analyzed for N02 plus

NO3 and NFL by using a ﬂow-through injection system (Am. Public Health Assoc, 1981).

Total Nitrogen:

Total N in the soil was determined by the micro-Kjeldahl method described by
Bremner (1965). One g of soil, ground to pass through a 0.25-mm sieve, was digested for
5 hours in 3 ml of concentrated H2804 containing 1.5 g K280, + 15mg Se. After cooling,
each sample received 20 ml of water. Ammonia was released by alkaline distillation, collected
in H;.,BO3 and titrated with standard sulfuric acid using methyl purple as the endpoint

indicator.

Organic Carbon Determination:

Organic C was determined by Walkley-Black wet digestion with chromic acid method
(Walkley and Black, 1934; Walkley, 1935, 1947). Ten ml of M KQCrZO7 were added to 1.5
g soil in a 500 ml Erlenmeyer ﬂask followed by addition of 20 ml concentrated H2804. The
sample was allowed to digest and cool for 30 minutes. Then 170 ml distilled water and 3
drops of ferrion (1,10-orthphenanthroline ferrous sulfate) were added and the sample was
titrated to a maroon end point using 0.5 N FeO‘IIL)2(SO4)2. Results of duplicate

determinations were calculated as % organic C in air dry soil.

67

Calculations:

Two models were used to describe the data of this study. The ﬁrst model utilized was
the ﬁrst-order exponential equation describing net N mineralization proposed by Stanford and
Smith (1972):

N = Noll - eXP(-kt)l
where N is mineralized N in time t, and N0 and k are the N-mineralization potential and rate
constant values.

The second model used was the hyperbolic equation proposed by Juma et al. (1984):

N = No*t/( T c-H)
In this equation Tc is the half time for mineralization and is related to the rate constant
k by the following:
T c = ln2/k
All other terms are as described above.
A Systat nonlinear least-squares regression program was used to evaluate No and k

in both models (Wilkinson, 1986).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 contains total N and oxidizable C values for various soils used in this study.
Kjeldahl N and oxidizable C values ranged from 0.9 to 5.2 and 7.10 to 58.1 g kg"
respectively. Soils within the same series showed variation in total N and oxidizable C values,

probably reﬂecting past soil and crop of these soils.

6 8
Nitrogen Mineralization

Cumulative N mineralized during a period of 44 weeks for various soils is shown
graphically in Figures 1 - 8. The same general trend for cumulative mineralized N is shown
for allsoils. The rate of mineralization was rapid at ﬁrst, then declined with the length of the
incubation period. The quantity of mineral N produced during 44 weeks of incubation ranged
from 59 to 161 mg kg" of soil. The lowest quantity was observed in Kilmanagh 1, while the
greatest amount of mineral N produced was found in the Zilwaukee series.

The NO values (Table 2) obtained by the exponential model ranged ﬁ'om 68 to 167 mg
kg" and from 90 to 212 mg kg" by the hyperbolic model. These values are equal to or
slightly less than those obtained by Gharous et al., (1990) for 13 diﬂ‘erent soils ﬁ'om arid and
semi-arid region of Morocco and the recalculated data of Stanford and Smith (1972) reported
by Talpaz et al. (1981) for 39 different soils from the US. The highest value of 167 mg kg"
and lowest value of 68 mg kg" were obtained in Zilwaukee and Kilmanagh 1 soils,
respectively. .

The diﬂ‘erences in N0 values were found not only among different soil series, but
within the same series. N0 ranged ﬁom 70 to 98 for the Tappan series and ﬁom 68 to 128 for
the Kilmanagh series. These results ruled out the possibility of using single No and k values
for predicting N availability for all soils within one series.

The rate constant (k) value estimated by the exponential model ranged ﬁ'om 0.053 to 1
0.103 week" while they ranged from 0.031 to 0.077 week" when estimated with the
hyperbolic model. The k values were not consistent within a soil series. The k values

obtained using exponential model in this study are generally higher than those reported by

6 9

Stanford and Smith (1972). However, they are similar to those reported by Smith et al.
(1980) and the recalculated data of Stanford and Smith (1972) reported by Talpaz et al.
(1981), but are lower than those reported by Beauchamp et al. (1986). The reasons for these
diﬁ‘erences are not clear, but it might be the result of diﬁ‘erent types of soils and the duration
of incubation period.

The k values obtained by hyperbolic model are within the same range as reported by
Stanford and Smith (1972) and are much lower than those reported. in Smith et al. (1980),
Beauchamp et al. (1986) and recalculated values by Talpaz (1981). Based on the information

available the reasons for these diﬂ'erences are not clear.

Exponential vs Hyperbolic Model

In this study, No and k values were estimated by both exponential and hyperbolic
model and were compared to see the diﬁ‘erences between the two models. The No values
estimated by the hyperbolic model were higher in all cases than those estimated by the
exponential model. Contrary to this, the k values estimated by the hyperbolic model were
lower than those estimated by the exponential model.

The comparison between the two models can best be made using the instantaneous
rate of reaction computed for each model. The instantaneous rate of reaction for exponential
model was computed by the equation:

dN/dt = N0 k exp(-kt)
while for hyperbolic model it was computed as:

dN/dt = No my; + t)2

70

The instantaneous rates of reaction computed by the two equations for each soil are
highly correlated for each period of incubation with linear coeﬁcients of determination (r2)
ranging ﬁom 0.86 to 0.99 (Table 3). These high r2 values are evidence that both models can
be used in laboratory incubation studies to estimate N0 and k values of the soils. Similar
results were obtained by Gharous et al. (1990) when they used both models and compared
instantaneous rates of reaction. Our results supported the earlier reports that both
exponential and hyperbolic models can be used to estimate reliable N0 and k values in soils if

a nonlinear least squares ﬁtting technique is used.

The Active Nitrogen Fraction

The active N fraction is considered the portion of organic matter that supplies a major
part of the plant available nitrogen for crop growth. It is represented by No/N, where, N, is
total N concentration of soil. In this study the active N ﬁaction values ranged from 3 to 11
% and ﬁ'om 4 to 14 % for exponential and hyperbolic models respectively (Table 2). The
highest value was observed for the Capac 3 soil and lowest for Zilwaukee soil.

The data indicated that, even though different types of soils showed differences in the
active N fraction, soils in the same series were generally similar. This is opposed to the N0
values which were signiﬁcantly diﬁ‘erent ﬁ'om each other for diﬂ‘erent soils belonging to the

same series.

71

CONCLUSIONS

N availability index for plants is not as simple as developing the plant available P index
ﬁ'om soil testing. The C/N ratio has been used to predict N availability, and it has generally
been reported that C/N ratio of the decomposing materials should be below 20 to 25 to obtain
appreciable net mineralization (Harmsen and Kolenbrander, 1965). There is one weakness
in this assumption that stable organic fractions are relatively resistant to decomposition and
the general rule that net mineralization of organic N depends primarily on N content of the
substrate holds true only for readily mineralizable part of the decaying materials.

Since C/N ratio and total N content of soil have certain limitations, to be successful
indices for available N, No and k values would be a better index for providing estimates of the
N supplying power of soils. But N0 and k values also have certain disadvantages for
successﬁrl use in soil management and crop production system. One major limitation is the
time required is so great that it can not be used in a routine soils analyses program. Another
limitation is that laboratory incubation does not account for environmental eﬁ‘ects. Variation
in temperature and moisture under ﬁeld conditions are not duplicated in the laboratory. For
more successful use of incubation procedures, it is important to include ﬁeld calibration of the
estimates of N0 values. However, the laboratory incubation procedure does provide
information concerning the mineralization characteristics of each soil/management system.

Further studies are needed for the ﬁeld calibration of laboratory generated No estimates.

LIST OF REFERENCES

American Public Health association 1980. Standard methods for examination of water and
waste water, 1981. 15th ed. Am. Public Health Assoc, Washington, DC.

Beauchamp E.G., W.D. Reynolds, D. Brasche-Villeneuve, and K. Kirby. 1986. Nitrogen
mineralization kinetics with diﬁ‘erent soil pretreatment and cropping histories. Soil.
Sci. Soc. Am. J. 50:1478-1483.

Bonde, TA, and T. Rosswall. 1987. Seasonal variation of potentially mineralizable nitrogen
in four cropping systems. Soil. Sci. Soc. Am. J. 51:1508-1514.

Bremner, J.M. 1965a Organic nitrogen in soils. In W. V. Bartholomew and F. E. Clark (ed.)
Soil nitrogen. Agronomy 10:93-149. Am. Soc. Agron., Inc., Madison, Wis.

Bremner, J .M. 1965b. Nitrogen availability indexes. In C. A Black et al. (ed.) Methods of
soil analysis, Part 2. Agronomy 9:1324-1345. Am. Soc. Agron., Madison, Wis.

Bremner, J.M. 1965b. Total nitrogen. In C. A Black et al. (ed.) Methods of soil analysis,
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Cabrera, ML. and DE. Kissel. 1988. Evaluation of a method to predict nitrogen
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Campbell, CA, and W. Souster. 1982. Loss of organic matter and potentially mineralizeable
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Campbell, CA, RJ.K. Myers, and K.L. Weier. 1981. Potentially mineralizable nitrogen,
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Campbell, CA, GR Lafond, AJ. Leyshon, RP. Zentner, and H.H. Janzen. 1991. Effect of

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72

73

Campbell, CA, B.H. Ellert, and Y.W. Jame. 1992. Nitrogen mineralization potential in
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Cassman, K.G., and D.N. Munns. 1980. Nitrogen mineralization as aﬂ‘ected by soil moisture
and depth. Soil. Sci. Soc. Am. J. 44:1233-1237.

Chae, Y.M., and MA Tabatabai. 1986. Mineralization of nitrogen in soils amended with
organic wastes. J. Environ. Qual. 15:193-198.

Chiang, C., B. Soudi, and A Moreno. 1983. Soil nitrogen mineralization and nitriﬁcation
under Moroccan conditions. In Nutrient balance and the need for fertilizers in
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Gharous, RL., RL. Westerman, and RN. Soltanpour. 1990. Nitrogen mineralization
potential of arid and semiarid soils of Morocco. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 54:438-443.

Griﬁn, GR, and AF. Laine. 1983. Nitrogen mineralization in soils previously amended with
organic wastes. Agron. J. 75:124-129.

Harmsen G.w., and G.J. Kolenbrander. 1965. Soil inorganic nitrogen (In W.V. Bartholomew
and RE. Clark (ed.), Soil nitrogen Agronomy 10:43 -92. Am. Soc. Agron. Madison,
WI.

Herlihy, M. 197 9. Nitrogen mineralization in soils of varying texture, moisture and organic
matter. I. Potential and experimental values in fallow soils. Plant Soil 53 :255-267.

Juma, N.G., EA Paul, and B. Mary. 1984. Kinetic analysis of net nitrogen mineralization in
soil. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 48:753-757.

Lindemann, W.C., and M. Cardenas. 1984. Nitrogen mineralization potential and nitrogen
transformations of sludge-amended soils. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 48: 1072-1077.

Miller, RD, and DD. Johnson 1964. The eﬂ‘ects of soil moisture tension on carbon dioxide
evolution, nitriﬁcation, and nitrogen mineralization. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. Proc. 28:644-
647.

Myers, RJ.K., C.A. Campbell and K.L. Weier. 1982. Quantitative relationship between net
nitrogen mineralization and moisture content of soils. Can]. Soil Sci. 62:111-124.

Smith J.A, L.B. Young, and GE. Miller. 1977. Evaluation of soil nitrogen mineralization
potential under modiﬁed ﬁeld conditions. Soil Sci Soc. Am. J. 41:74-76.

74

Smith. J.L., RR Schnabel, B.L. McNeal, and GS. Campbell. 1980. Potential errors in the
ﬁrst-order model for estimating soil nitrogen mineralization potentials. Soil Sci. Soc.
Am. J. 44:996-1000.

Stanford, G., J.N. Carter, D.T. Westermann, and J .J . Meisinger. 1977. Residual nitrate and
mineralizable soil nitrogen in relation to nitrogen uptake by irrigated sugarbeets.
Agron J. 69:303-308.

Stanford, G., and E. Epstein 1974. Nitrogen mineralization-water relations in soils. Soil Sci.
Soc. Am Proc. 38:103-108.

Stanford, G., N.J. Carter, and 8.]. Smith. 1974. Estimates of potentially mineralizable soil
nitrogen based on short-term incubation. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. Proc. 38: 99-102.

Stanford G., and 8.]. Smith. 1972. Nitrogen mineralization potentials of soils. Soil Sci. Soc.
Am Proc. 362465-472.

Stanford, G., and S]. Smith. 197 6. Estimating potentially mineralizable soil nitrogen ﬁ'om
chemical index of soil nitrogen availability. Soil Sci. 122: 71-76.

Stanford, G., J .O. Legg, and SJ. Smith. 1973. Soil N availability evaluations based on
nitrogen mineralization potentials of soils and uptake of labeled and unlabeled N by
plants. Plant Soil 39:113-124.

Talpaz, H., P. Fine, and B. Bar-Yasef. 1981. On the estimation of the N-mineralization
parameters ﬁ'om incubation experiments. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 45:993-996.

Walkley, A, and IA Black. 1934. An examination of the Degtjareﬂ‘ method for determining
soil organic matter, and a modiﬁcation of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Sci.
37:29-3 8.

Walkley, A, 1935. An estimation of methods for determining organic carbon and nitrogen
in soils. J. Agric. Sci. 25:588-609.

Walkley, A 1947. A critical examination of a rapid method for determining organic carbon
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Soil Sci. 63:251-264.

Wilkinson, LS. 1986. The system for statistics. Systat, Inc., Evanston, IL.

75

 

 

 

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CHAPTER V

Sugarbeet Yield and Quality as Affected by N Fertilizer, Soil

Type and Cropping System.

Farmers and researchers have always shown an interest in crop rotations as a
management tool. In the past this interest had resulted because of a lack of or increased cost
of inorganic N fertilizer and reduced yield in monoculture (V arvel and Peterson, 1990). In
many industrialized countries inorganic nitrogen fertilizers are not expensive, but increased
concerns of environment and water pollution have increased the interest in crop rotation as
an attractive means to reduced use of chemical fertilizer (Keeney, 1982).

Although the beneﬁcial effects of crop rotation have been well documented, the
increased need for food and every day changing economics of crop production requires a
continuous evaluation of the Contribution of crop rotation and adaptation of other
management strategies for optimum crop production. One of these management practices is
the use of fertilizer N along with crop rotation to ﬁrlﬁll the gap between crop fertilizer N
requirements and amount of N available ﬁ'om the previous crop in the sequence.

Optimum and economic crop production without polluting the environment requires

an accurate estimate of the fertilizer N required. It is especially true for the crops like

87

8 8
sugarbeet which requires more precise information for N fertilizer management (Carter et al.,
1975). Inadequate N availability limits plant grth and root yield, but over fertilization of
sugarbeet with N reduces both sucrose percentage and recoverable sucrose (Hills and Ulrich,
1971). Also, excess N may stimulate more leaf growth than necessary, could be lost by
leaching into ground water on sandy soils, or be lost through denitriﬁcation.

The beneﬁcial eﬂ‘ects of crop rotation over monoculture are mainly related to
inclusion of legumes or high residue producing crops in the sequence. Rotation plays an
important role in the maintenance of soil fertility (Gakale and Clegg, 1987; Clegg, 1982;
Zielke and Christenson, 1986; Roder et al., 1988), improvement of soil physical properties
(F ahad et al., 1982), reduction of pathogens (Cook, 1984) and control of soil erosion
(Mannering et al., 1968). Large increases in yield of various crops due to rotations have been
reported by many researchers (Clegg, 1982; Gakale and Clegg, 1987; Johnson, 1987;
Peterson and Varvel, 1989; Roder et al, 1989; Bundy et al., 1993). In Michigan, researchers
also reported increased sugarbeet yield due to rotation especially when legumes were included
in the sequence (Cook et al., 1946; Robertson et al., 1967 and 1977; Christenson, 1989;
Christenson et al., 1991).

In the sugarbeet growing area of Michigan, there is a wide diversity of soils and farm
management practices. The latter includes growing legumes in rotation, returning varying
amounts of crop residues due to the length of rotation and mix of crops, and application of
animal manure. In view of this diversity it is necessary to know the N fertilizer response

under varying soil and crop management conditions.

89

The objective of this experiment was to study the eﬁ‘ects of N fertilizer, cropping

system and soil type on sugarbeet yield and quality.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Field Study

Two series of ﬁeld studies were conducted to evaluate the effect of N rate on yield
and quality of sugarbeet. The ﬁrst study was conducted on a Misteguay silty clay soil (Aeric
Haplaquept) in 1992 and 1993 to evaluate various cropping systems with respect to response
to applied N for sugarbeet. This study compares ﬁve selected systems ﬁ'om along term
experiment that was initiated in 1972 and arranged as randomized complete block design with
four replications. The ﬁve systems considered as treatments are as follows: Com-com-sugar
beet (CCB), corn-navy bean-sugar beet (CBeB), navy bean-navy bean-sugar beet (BeBeB),
oat-navy bean-sugar beet (OBeB) and oat-alfalfa-navy bean-sugar beet (OABeB). All crops
were grown every year using the recommended cultural practices. Details of this long term
rotation study are described by Christenson et al. (1991).

Each treatment plot was divided into four sub-plots and N fertilizer was broadcasted
at planting at rates of 0, 45, 90 and 135 kg N ha". Sugarbeets were planted in a 71 cm row
spacing in the last week of April and were thinned to 20 cm between plants approximately ﬁve
weeks aﬁer planting. In the last week of October the sugar beets were defoliated with a
beater/topper and mechanically harvested. Yields were estimated by weighing the beets

harvested from a two-10 meter rows. Twenty average size beet roots were selected from

90

each plot. These beets were sliced and the juice extracted ﬁom the resulting pulp was
immediately frozen The analysis of variance was calculated utilizing a split plot design with
cropping system as the main plot and nitrogen rate as the sub-plot.

The second study consisted of a series of fertilizer N trials at 13 different locations in
the Saginaw Valley and Thumb area of Michigan. The details of the soil type and
classiﬁcation are given in Table 1. Sugarbeet was planted at these locations during the years
of 1991, 1992 and 1993. Nrtrogen was broadcasted at planting at the rate of 0, 45, 78, 112,
and 146 kg N ha". Beets were harvested mid- to late-October determining yield and quality
in a manner similar to the cropping system experiment. Each experiment was replicated four
times. A combined analysis of variance was calculated, treating locations as the main plot and

N rate as sub-plot.

Plant Tissue Collection:
Twenty leaf blades (youngest mature leaves) were collected approximately 12 weeks

after planting. The samples were dried, ground and saved for analysis.

Laboratory Analysis:

1. W

Total N of the plant was determined by the micro-Kjeldahl method described by. Two
hundred mg of ground plant tissue, was digested for 5 hours in 3 ml of concentrated HzSO,
containing 1.5g KZSO4 + 15mg Se. After cooling each sample received 20 ml of distilled

water. Ammonia was released by alkaline distillation, collected in H3BO3 and titrated with

91

standard sulfuric acid using methyl purple as the endpoint indicator.

2- W

The frozen juice collected ﬁom beet roots was analyzed by the Michigan Sugar
Company Agriculture Research Laboratory for clear juice purity and sucrose content
according to the methods described by Dexter et al. (1967), and Caruthers and Oldﬁeld

(1961), respectively.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Effect of Cropping System and N Fertilizer Rate on Sugarbeet Yield and Quality.

The effect of cropping systems and N fertilizer rates on sugar beet yield parameters
were studied in this experiment. Recoverable white sugar per hectare (RWSH) is one
parameter used to estimate the yield of sugarbeet crop. Tables 2 and 3 show the eﬁ‘ects of
cropping system and N rate on RWSH in 1992 and 1993. The cropping system by N rate
interaction was not signiﬁcant in either year. Signiﬁcant eﬂ‘ects of cropping system and N
rate were found in both years. Among the cropping systems OABeB gave the highest RWSH
in both years, while CCB and CBeB during 1992 and 1993, respectively, were the lowest.
In 1993 N rate greater than 90 kg N ha" did not show any response. However, in 1992 a
yield response was observed up to 135 kg N ha" even though there was not signiﬁcant a
diﬁ‘erence between 90 and 135 kg N ha".

The yield of beet roots is given in Tables 4 and 5 for 1992 and 1993 crops. The

92

cropping system by N rate interaction was not signiﬁcant in either year. However, signiﬁcant
diﬁ‘a'ences for simple effects of cropping system and nitrogen rate were found in both years.
Among the cropping systems the highest yield (64.7 Mg ha") was observed for OABeB
system, while the lowest yield (45.1 Mg ha") was obtained in CBeB system The systems that
produced the highest and the lowest yields of beets were same for both years. The cropping
systems can be ranked as follows with respect to signiﬁcant differences of yield: OABeB =
CCB > BeBeB = OBeB = CBeB for 1992 and OABeB > OBeB = BeBeB = CCB > CBeB
for 1993.

The simple effects of N rate on beet yield showed that crop responded to applied N
signiﬁcantly up to the highest rate (135 kg ha") during 1992 and up-to 90 kg N ha" during
1993. There was more rainfall in 1993 than in 1992 during May and June (Table 6). The
fertilizer was applied in mid-May both years, so the difference in response is not related to
differences in rainfall immediately alter application Greater denitriﬁcation would be expected
in 1993 than in 1992 with potentially wetter soils. The accumulation in growing degree days
is similar both years. The greater response to applied nitrogen in 1992 could be explained if
nitrate nitrogen were present in the soil in July. There could possibly be more denitriﬁcation
this year than in 1993 because of the greater rainfall. Unpublished data show there can be
large concentrations of nitrate present in early July.

The other parameters measured were percent sugar and clear juice purity (CJP). The
interaction of cropping system and fertilizer rate was signiﬁcant foripercent sugar for both
years (Table 7 and 8). Increasing N rate did not signiﬁcantly affect percent sugar for the

CCB, CBeB or the BeBeB system in 1992. Sugar accunmlationwas suppressed by increasing

93

N for the OBeB and OABeB system. Results in 1993 were dissimilar to those obtained in
1992. Percent sugar was not signiﬁcantly aﬁ‘ected by N rate for CBeB or BeBeB while it
caused decline with the other systems. Highest percent sugar in the beets was found in OBeB
cropping system with 45 kg N ha" and the lowest percentage was observed in OABeB system
with 135 kg N ha".

It was interesting to note that the lowest percent sugar was observed in the same
treatment (OABeB system) where highest amount of RWS and highest root yield were
observed. This might be due to higher sugarbeet yield decreasing sugar concentration in the
beet. It is apparent that greater yields of the OABeB system compensated for the reduction
in sugar concentration at the higher rates. It is desirable to produce high yields with high
sucrose concentration to get maximum beneﬁts ﬁom applied N.

Clear juice purity declined with increasing nitrogen rates in both years, but the eﬂ‘ect
was signiﬁcant only in 1992 (Table 9 and 10). The highest CJP was obtained in the
treatments where no fertilizer was applied and the lowest percent was obtained where highest
amount of fertilizer N (135 kg N ha") was applied. Among the cropping systems, CCB gave
the highest CJP during 1993 cropping season, but during 1992 CBeB was at the top. These
diﬁ‘erences were too small to be statistically signiﬁcant and suggest there is little eﬁ‘ect of

cropping system on CJP.

Effect of N Fertilizer Rate on Sugarbeet Yield and Quality at Various Locations.
N fertilizer rate experiments were carried out at 13 diﬁ‘erent locations in Michigan to

evaluate the effect of N rate on sugarbeet yield and quality across a number of soil types.

94

Table 11 contains the RWS yield data, which shows a signiﬁcant interaction between location
and N rates. The signiﬁcant interaction indicates the need for developing N fertilizer
recommendation based on soil type in sugarbeet growing area of Michigan The most RWS
was obtained at the Weiss farm in 1991 with 146 kg N ha", while lowest amount was
observed in Knochel farm in 1992 from the control treatment. When the N fertilizer rate
treatment effects on RWS were observed at individual locations, it was found that 5 sites
(Ryers 91, Roggenbuck 91, Russell 92, Sutto 92 and Russell 93) did not show any response
to applied N. Three other sites (Maust 92, Maust 93, Swartz 92) respond up to 45 kg N ha",
while only 2 (Fogg 91, Weiss 91), 1 (Siler 91) and 2 (Fisher 91, Knochel 92) sites respond
to N rate 78, 112 and 146 kg N ha", respectively.

As shown with RWS, root yield response to applied N was highly variable among
various locations as shown by the signiﬁcant interaction of N rate and location (Table 12).
Highest root yield was observed at the Weiss farm in 1991 while lowest on the Knochel farm
in 1992.

The data for N concentration in leaf blades might be helpﬁrl to understand the
differences of yield response to applied N (Table 13). Similar to the results of RWS and root
yield, N content of leaf blade in sugarbeet grown at various locations showed variable
response to applied N. Results of N rate eﬁ‘ects on RWS were compared with the percent
N in the leaves and no relation between the two was found. It is interesting to note that at
all locations percent N in the leaves (Table 13) was below the intermediate levels of N for
optimum yields (3.6 - 4.0%) given by Chapman (1967). In view of the very low N

concentrations in the leaves, it is diﬁcult to ermlain the lack of response to applied N.

95

A signiﬁcant interaction was found for percent sugar in the beets (Table 14). Percent
sugar ranged ﬁom 16.9 to 21.4. The highest percent sugar was found at Ryers farm in 1991
in the treatment where no N was applied. Examining the simple eﬁ‘ects of N rate, it is clear
that increasing the amount of N fertilizer decreased the sugar concentration in beets.
Although, percent sucrose in the beets did not show any response to applied N, but beet root
yield and ultimately RWS did increase with increased N at several locations. The need for
searching optimum fertilizer N rate for maximum root yield and highest percentage of sucrose

The location and N rate individually aﬁ‘ected CJP signiﬁcantly (Table 15). The
amount of N fertilizer and the CJP data showed a reciprocal relationship. The highest CJP
(94.6%) was obtained where no fertilizer was applied and lowest (93.6%) in the treatment
where highest amount of N fertilizer (146 kg N ha") was applied. Among the locations,
Weiss farm gave the highest CJP while Roggenbuck was lowest. The decline in juice purity
with increasing N reduced the recoverable sugar. The increased beet root yield with increased
fertilizer did compensate for reduced sucrose percentage and juice purity at some locations.
But, the ultimate goal for sugarbeet production is maximum RWS which can only be obtained
with higher yields and maximum juice purity. The locations where yield did not respond to
increased N rate needs more attention in terms of increasing the juice purity. Our results are
in line with previous ﬁndings of Baldwin and Stevenson (1969) and Hills and Ulrich (1971).

These researchers reported a decreased percent sucrose and juice purity with increasing N.

9 6
CONCLUSION
Sugarbeet yield and quality parameters measured in this study were found highly
aﬂ‘ected by cropping system, soil type and location and fertilizer rate. Percent sugar in the
roots and clear juice purity were highly affected by N rate, declining with increasing rate. The
sugarbeet yield response to applied N was highly variable from location to location and ﬁom
one crop sequence to another. The diﬁ‘erences of yield response to applied N under different
cropping systems and at various locations indicate that crop N needs are dependent on soil
type and crop management practices. Therefore, better N fertilizer recommendations for

sugar beet can only be made if these factors are taken into consideration.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Baldwin, CS. and J .F. Stevenson 1969. The eﬁ’ect of nitrogen on yield, percent sucrose, and
clear juice purity of sugarbeets. J. Am. Soc. Sugar Beet Tech. 15:522-527.

Bundy, LG, and T.W. Andraski. 1993. Soil and Plant nitrogen availability tests for corn
following alfalfa. J. Prod. Agric. 62200-206.

Carruthers, A, and J.F.T. Oldﬁeld. 1961. Methods for assessment of beet quality. Intern.
Sugar J. 63:72-74.

Carter J.N., D.T. Westermann, M.E. Jensen, and S.M. Bosma. 1975. Predicting N fertilizer
needs for sugar beets ﬁ'om residual NO, and mineralizable nitrogen. J. Am. Soc. of
Sugar Beet Tech. 18:232-244.

Clegg, MD. 1982. Effect of soybean and nitrogen response of subsequent sorghum crops in
Eastern Nebraska Field Crop Res. 5233-23 9.

Chapman, HD. 1967. Plant analysis values suggestive of nutrient status of selected crops. In
Soil testing and plant analysis part 11. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. Spec. Pub. 2.

Christenson, DR 1989. Sugar beet yield trends as aﬂ‘ected by cropping system. J. Sugar
Beet Res. 26:A5.

Christenson D.R C.E. Bricker, and RS. Gallagher. 1991. Crop yields as aﬁ‘ected by cropping
system and rotation. Michigan State Univ. Agric. Exp. Sta. Res Rep. 516.

Cook, RL., C.E. Miller, and LS. Robertson. 1946. Sugar beets in seven Michigan system
of crop rotation. Proc. Am. Soc. Sugarbeet tech. 4:73-87.

Cook, RJ., 1984. Root health: importance and relationship to farming practices. In D.F.
Bezdicek, J.F. Power, and DR Keeney, M]. Wright (ed.). Organic Farming: current
technology and its role in a sustainable agriculture. Spec. Publ. 46:111-127. ASA,
CSSA., SSSA. madison, WI.

97

98

Dexter, S. T. , M. G. Frakes, and F.W. Snyder. 1967. A rapid and practical method for
determining extractable white sugar as may be applied to the evaluation of agronomic
practices and grower deliveries in the sugarbeet industry. J. Am. Soc. Sugar Beet
Tech. 14:433-454.

Fahad, AA, L.N. Mielke, AD. Flowerday, and D. Swartzendruber. 1982. Soil physical
properties as aﬁ‘ected by soybean and other cropping sequences. Soil Sci Soc. Am.
J. 46:377-381.

Gakale, LP, and MD. Clegg. 1987 . Nitrogen ﬁ'om soybean for dryland sorghum. Agron.
J. 79:1057-1061.

Hills, F.J., and A Ulrich. 1971. Nrtrogen nutrition. pp.111-135. In RT. Johnson et al. (eds.)
Advances in sugar beet production: Principles and practices. The Iowa State
University Press, Ames, Iowa.

Johnson, RR 1987. Crop management. In J,R Wilcox (ed.). Soybean: Improvement
production, and uses, 2nd ed. Agron Monogr. 16:355-390. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA,
Madison WI.

Keeney, DR 1982. Nitrogen management for maximum eﬁciency and minimum pollution.
In F.G. Stevenson (ed.). Nitrogen in agricultural soils. Agron. Monogr. 22605-649.
ASA, CSSA, and SSSA, Madison WI.

Mannering, J. V. L. D. Meyer, and C. B. Johnson, 1968. Eﬁ‘ect of cropping intensity on
erosion and inﬁltration. Agron. J. 60:206-209.

Moore, 8., and W.H. Stein. 1954. A modiﬁed ninhydrin reagent for the photometric
determination of amino acids and related compounds. J. Biol. Chem. 211:907.

Peterson TA, and GE. Varvel. 1989. Crop yields as effected by rotation and nitrogen rate.
I: Soybean. Agron. J. 81:727-731.

Peterson TA, and GE. Varvel. 1989. Crop yields as eﬁ‘ected by rotation and nitrogen rate.
11: Grain Sorghum. Agron. J. 81:731-734.

Peterson TA, and GE. Varvel. 1989. Crop yields as effected by rotation and nitrogen rate.
III: Corn. Agron. J. 81:735-738.

Robertson, L.S., RL. Cook, C.D. Piper, RH. Dowdy, and JR Davis. 1965. Sugarbeet
production in Michigan as affected by crop sequence and fertility levels. J. Am. Soc.
Sugarbeet Tech. 13:304-313.

99

Robertson, L.S., RL. Cook, and H“. Davis. 1977. The Ferden Farm report. IV: Soil
management for navy beans. Michigan Agric. Exp. Sta. Res. Rep. 350.

Roder, W., S.C. Mason, M.D. Clegg, J.W. Doran, and KR Kniep. 1988. Plant and microbial
response to sorghum-soybean cropping systems and fertility management. Soil Sci.
Soc. Am. J. 52:1337-1342.

Varvel GE, and TA Peterson 1990. Residual soil nitrogen as affected by continuous, two-
year and four-year crop rotation systems. Agron J. 82:95 8-962.

Zielke, RC., and DR Christenson 1986. Organic carbon and nitrogen changes in soil under
selected cropping systems. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 50:363-367.

100

 

 

 

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101

Table 2. Recoverable white sugar as affected by N rate
and cropping system for sugarbeet grown on
Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992.

 

 

 

Cropping museum;—

system 0 45 90 135 Ave.
------------------- kg ha"------------------

CCB 5470 7050 7250 7420 6810

CBeB 5770 6730 6870 8000 6840

BeBeB 5280 7180 7320 8060 6960

OBeB 8170 8170 8370 8810 8380

OaBeB 7810 8420 9040 8950 8560

Average 6500 7510 7770 8250

LSD (0.05)* N.S.

LSD (0.05) N rate 0.482

LSD (0.05) Cropping system 0.687

 

* Comparing two N rate means within a cropping system.

Table 3. Recoverable white sugar as affectd by N rate and
cropping system for sugarbeet grown on Misteguay
silty clay soil in 1993.

 

 

 

Cropping Nitrogen rate kg ha“1

system 0 45 90 135
------------------- kg ha"------------------

CCB 6390 6980 8110 7810 7320

CBeB 4700 5710 7300 7290 6250

BeBeB 5540 7010 7330 8190 7020

OBeB 6120 6850 7300 7830 7020

OABeB 7220 7530 8930 7650 7830

Average 5990 6820 7790 7760

LSD (0.05)* N.S.

LSD (0.05) N rate 603

LSD (0,05) Cropping system 500

 

I Comparing two N rate means within a cropping system.

102

 

 

 

Table 4. Effect of N rate and cropping system on yield

of sugarbeet grown on a Misteguay silty clay

in 1992.
Cropping Nitregen_rare_kg_hai_______
system 0 45 90 135 Ave.

--------------------- Mg ha"----------------

CCB 41.1 52.4 53.9 55.8 50.8
CBeB 43.5 50.3 51.1 59.4 51.1
BeBeB 39.5 53.1 54.5 61.2 52.1
OBeB 60.0 59.6 64.0 67.1 62.6
OaBeB 58.0 62.7 68.2 69.7 64.7
Average 48.4 55.6 58.3 62.6
LSD (0.05)* N.S.
LSD (0.05) cropping system 5.19
LSD (0.05) N rate 3.68

 

1 Comparing two N rate within a cropping system.

Table 5. Effect of N rate and cropping system on yield
of sugarbeet grown on a Misteguay silty clay

 

 

in 1993.
Cropping ' at a"
system 0 45 78 135 Ave.

----------------- Mg ha"--------------------

CCB 47.4 52.3 63.7 59.9 50.8
CBeB 37.1 43.2 55.0 55.8 47.7
BeBeB 42.5 53.1 55.1 63.2 53.5
OBeB 45.0 51.9 55.8 61.5 53.5
OABeB 53.6 56.7 68.5 60.9 59.8
Average 45.1 51.4 59.6 60.3
LSD (0.05) N.S.
LSD (0.05) cropping system 4.86
LSD (0.05) N rate 3.87

 

' Comparing two N rate within a cropping system.

103

 

 

Table 6. Monthly rainfall and growing degree days at the
Saginaw Valley Bean and Beet Research Farm for
1992 and 1993.
__Bainf.all_ W 1
Month 1992 1993 1992 1993
- - - mm - - - - - -'-°C - - -
April 116 104 25 0.00
May 28.3 70.0 128 97.8
June 53.3 77.0 240 221
July 110 62.0 328 339
August 74.2 117 275 323
September 104 102 155 84 . 0
Total 486 532 1151 1060

 

* Growing degree days = Cumulative

daily [{(Nax+Min)/2}-10]

104

Table 7. .Percent sugar as affected by N rate and cropping
system for sugarbeet grown on a Misteguay silty
clay soil in 1992.

 

 

 

 

Cropping r1i3:.:cszgen_ratze_ls_q_ha'r

system 0 45 90 135 Ave.
...................... g---------------------

con 17.9 18.2 18.2 18.0 18.1

ones 17.8 17.9 18.1 18.2 18.0

BeBeB 17.9 18.1 18.1 18.0 18.0

0888 18.2 18.4 17.8 17.9 18.1

OABeB 18.1 18.2 17.9 17.7 18.0

Average 18.0 18.2 18.0 17.9

LSD (0.05)‘ 0.319

 

’ comparing two N rate within a cropping system.

Table 8. ‘Percent sugar as affectd by N rate and cropping
system for sugarbeet grown on a Misteguay silty
clay soil in 1993.

 

 

 

Cropping Nitroggn rate kg ha"

system 0 45 90 135 Ave.
.................... g-----------------------

CCB 18.2 18.3 17.8 17.6 18.0

CBeB 17.9 18.0 18.2 18.0 18.0

BeBeB 18.0 18.1 18.2 17.9 18.1

OBeB 18.4 18.1 18.1 17.7 18.1

OABeB 18.3 18.3 17.9 17.5 18.0

Average 18.2 18.2 18.0 17.7

1LSD (0.05)‘ 0.346

 

1

comparing two N rate within a cropping system.

105

 

 

 

Table 9. IClear Juice purity (CJP) as affectd by N rate
and cropping system for sugarbeet grown on a
Misteguay silty clay soil in 1992.

Cropping ._____Ei3;r:s2gsn_ratze.lssr_l_1;t‘I

system 0 45 90 135 Ave.

..................... g----------------------

CCB 95.3 94.9 95.2 95.0 95.1

CBeB 95.3 95.5 95.3 95.1 95.3

BeBeB 95.4 95.4 95.3 94.7 95.2

OBeB 95.5 95.3 94.8 94.8 95.1

OaBeB 95.3 94.8 95.1 94.3 94.9

Average 95.4 95.2 95.1 94.8

LSD (0.05)* N.S.

LSD (0.05) cropping system N.S.

LSD (0.05) N rate 0.275

 

I comparing two N rate within a cropping system.

 

 

 

 

Table 10. Clear Juice purity (CJP) as affectd by N rate
and cropping system for sugarbeet grown on a
Misteguay silty clay soil in 1993.

Cropping Nitrggen rate 3g ha"

system 0 45 90 135 Ave.

...................... g---_-----------------

CCB 95.4 94.4 93.6 95.3 94.7

CBeB 93.3 94.8 94.5 94.1 94.2

BeBeB 94.0 94.2 94.3 94.2 94.2

OBeB 94.9 94.2 94.1 93.7 94.2

OABeB 94.7 94.1 94.3 93.7 94.2

Average 94.5 94.3 94.2 94.2

LSD (0.05)‘ N.S.

LSD (0.05) cropping system N.S.

LSD (0.05) N rate N.S.

 

I comparing two N rate within a cropping system.

106

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CHAPTER VI

Soil Analysis and Prediction of Response to

Applied Nitrogen

Optimum and economic crop production without polluting the environment requires
an accurate estimate of fertilizer N required. It is especially true for the crops like sugarbeet
which requires more precise information of N fertilizer management (Carter et al., 1975).
Inadequate N availability limits plant growth and root yield, but over fertilization of sugarbeet
with N reduces the quality by decreasing both sucrose percentage and recoverable sucrose
(Hills and Ulrich, 1971). Also excess N may stimulate more leaf growth than necessary or
could be lost by leaching, creating water pollution.

Soil and plant tissue tests can provide essential information for decision making for
eﬁicient and economical use of N fertilizer. A number of such procedures have been
proposed and discussed (Bremner, 1965a: Dahnke and Vasey, 1973; Robinson, 1968). Soil
N analysis using various procedures and correlating them with crop uptake in the ﬁeld and
in the greenhouse are commonly used to get information about soil available N. The success
of such a procedure depends upon its correlation with N uptake by the plants in the

greenhouse or ﬁeld and yield data (Keeney, 1982).

111

 

112

The search for a consistent and reliable soil N test that can predict N availability for
a crop and can be used in a routine soil testing laboratory has lasted over half a century
(Keeney, 1982; Stanford, 1982). Among the methods, developed biological indices such as
aerobic and anaerobic incubation have gained popularity. However, these methods are not
useful for routine laboratory analysis because of time constraints (\Vrlson et al., 1994).
Alternatively, chemical methods of soil analysis might be more attractive because they are
rapid and more precise (Serna and Pomares, 1992). However, use of chemical method is
open to the criticism because no chemical treatment of soil is likely to simulate the microbial
processes responsible for mineralization of soil N.

A mrmber of soil chemical treatments such as oxidation and acid hydrolysis have been
utilized in the development of chemical indices of N availability. Among the chemical
methods, alkaline KMnO4 (Kresge and Merkle, 1957), KQCrZO, extraction (Sahrawat, 1982),
Walkley-Black procedure for organic carbon (W alkley and Black, 1934), dilute HZSO4
hydrolysis (Purvis and Leo, 1961), CaCl2 autoclaving (Stanford and Demar, 1969) and
phosphate-borate steam distillation (Gianello and Bremner, 1988) have been used. Many
researchers have used these methods and correlated them with crop N uptake in the
greenhouse or ﬁeld. The results reported with each of these methods vary with the
circumstances. Success of any of these methods depends upon the circumstances under which
it is used.

In the sugarbeet growing area of Michigan, there is a wide diversity of soils and farm
management practices including crop rotations centered on small grains, dry beans, corn,

soybeans, forages and sugarbeets. Residues from these crops along with animal manure are

113

returned to the soil. In view of this diversity it is necessary to know the N supplying
capability of a soil if reasonably accurate recommendations for fertilizer N needs are to be
made. At present there is not enough research data to make a reliable prediction of N supply.
The main concern in this regard is to determine a procedure that is quick, eﬁcient and
economically feasible for routine use and have a high correlation with uptake and yield data.

In view of these concerns, the objective of this experiment was to evaluate various
laboratory methods for obtaining a suitable index of soil N availability and correlate them with

N uptake and yield parameters of sugarbeet crop under varying soils and cropping systems.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Field Study

Two series of ﬁeld studies were used to evaluate various cropping systems and soils
with respect to N availability to sugar beet crop at several N fertilizer rates. The ﬁrst study
was conducted on a Misteguay silty clay soil (Aeric Haplaquept) in 1992 and 1993 to
compare ﬁve cropping systems ﬁ'om along term experiment that was initiated in 1972 and
arranged as randomized complete block design with four replications. The ﬁve systems
considered as treatments are as follows: com-corn-sugar beet (CCB), com-navy bean-sugar
beet (CBeB), navy bean-navy bean-sugar beet (BeBeB), oat-navy bean-sugar beet (OBeB)
and oat-alfalfa-navy bean-sugar beet (OABeB). All crops were grown every year utilizing
recommended cultural practices. Details of the procedure followed and yield results are given
by Christenson et al. (1991).

Each treatment plot was divided into four sub-plots and N fertilizer was broadcasted

 

114

at the rates of 0, 45, 90 and 135 kg N ha". Sugarbeets were planted in a 71 cm row spacing
in the last week of April and were thinned to 20 cm between plants approximately ﬁve weeks
alter planting. In the last week of October the sugarbeets were defoliated and mechanically
harvested. Yields were estimated by weighing the beets harvested ﬁ'om a two-10 meter rows.
Twenty average size beets were selected from each plot. These beets were sliced and the juice
extracted ﬁ'om the resulting pulp was immediately ﬂow The analysis of variance was
calculated utilizing a split plot design with cropping system the main plots and N rate the
subplot.

The second experiment consisted of fertilizer N trials at 13 diﬁ‘erent locations in the
Saginaw Valley and Thumb region of Michigan The details of the soil type and classiﬁcation
are given in Table 1 (Chapter 3). Sugarbeets were planted at these locations during the years
of 1991, 1992 or 1993. Nitrogen was broadcasted at planting at the rate of o, 45, 78, 112,
and 146 kg N ha". Beets were harvested mid- to late- October determining yield and quality
in a manner similar to the cropping system experiment. Each experiment was replicated four
times. A combined analysis of variance was calculated, treating locations as main plot and

N rate as sub-plot.

Soil Sample Collection:

In both series of studies, soil samples were taken ﬁom the control plot at planting
time. All samples were taken to a depth of 0-20 cm Each sample consisted of 20 probes per
plot. Samples collected were air dried, ground, sieved through 2 mm screen and stored in air

tight bottles for laboratory analysis.

 

1 1 5

Laboratory Analysis:

1. Organic carbon determination

Oxidizable organic carbon was determined by the Walkley-Black wet digestion with
chromic acid (Walkley and Black, 1934; Walkley, 193 5, 1947). Ten ml of M K2020, was
added to 1.5 g soil in a 500 ml Erlenmeyer ﬂask followed by addition of 20 ml concentrated
H2SO,. The sample was allowed to digest and cool for 30 minutes. Then 170 ml distilled
water and 3 drops of ferrion (1, lO-orthophenanthroline ferrous sulfate) were added, and the
sample was titrated to a maroon end point using 0.5 N Fe(NI-I4)2(SO.)2. Results of duplicate

determination were used to calculate % oxidizable C in air dry soil.

2. Total Nitrogen

Total N of the soil was determined by the micro-Kjeldahl method described by
Bremner, (1965b). One gram of soil ground to pass a 0.25 mm sieve, was digested for 5
hours in 3 ml ofconcentrated I-IQSO4 containing 1.5 gK¢SO4 +15 mg Se. After cooling, each
sample received 20 ml of distilled water. Ammonia was released by alkaline distillation,
collected in H3BO3 and titrated with standard sulfuric acid using methyl purple as the end

point indicator.

3. Nitrate and Ammonium
Nitrate and ammonium were extracted by shaking 10 g soil with 100 ml of M KCl
followed by ﬁltering (Bremner, 19650). The ﬁltrate was analyzed for N03 plus NO2 and NH4

by using a ﬂow through injection system (American Public Health Association, 1981).

116

4. Phosphate-Borate steam distillation

Potentially available organic N in soil was measured by the method of Gianello and
Bremner (1988). This method involves the determination of NH4-N produced by steam
distillation of soil sample with phosphate-borate buﬂ‘er solution. The buffer solution is
prepared by dissolving Na,PO,. 121820 and Na,B,O-,.10HZO in the ratio of 4:1 in water. Four
g of soil ground to pass through 0.25 mm screen was distilled with 40 ml of phosphate-bomte
buﬁ‘er solution adjusted to a pH of 11.2. NH3 released was collected in 5 ml of Boric acid

and titrated with standard H250,

5. Autoclavable N

Ammonium N released on autoclaving in dilute CaCl2 solution was measured as
described by Stanford and DeMar (1969) and modiﬁed by Smith and Stanford (1971) and
Stanford and Smith (1976). A 10 g soil sample mixed with 25 ml of 0.01 M CaCl2 was

autoclaved at 121 °C for 16 hours and the NH4-N was measured by steam distillation.

6. Anaerobic Incubation

Ammonium N produced under water logged conditions was measured (Waring and
Bremner, 1964). Five g of soil with 12.5 ml of water was incubated in closed tube at 40 °C
for one week. At the end of incubation period 0.2 to 0.3 g of MgO was added followed by
steam distillation to release NH3 which was trapped in H3BO, and titrated using a standard

acid. The amount of NIL-N present in the soil before incubation was determined by KC]

117

extraction and mineralizable N was calculated from the diﬁ‘erence of the two analyses.

7. Alkaline Permanganate

The NH4-N was recovered by steam distilling soil during extraction with alkaline
permanganate. One gram of soil with 10 ml of extracting solution (5 g KMnO, dissolved per
liter of 10N NaOI-I) was distilled for 4 minutes into 5 ml of boric acid-indicator solution and
titrated against 0.005 N H280, (Subbiah and Asija, 1956). The soils were also distilled with
NaOH extractant alone to determine NI-L-N released by hydrolysis. Oxidative NIL-N released
was estimated as the difference between total NH,-N produced during alkaline permanganate

extraction and that derived by NaOH distillation.

8. Sugarbeet quality analysis

The frozen juice that was collected from beet roots was analyzed by the Michigan
sugar company Agriculture Research Laboratory for clear juice purity and sucrose content
according to the methods described by Dexter et a1. (1967) and Carruthers and Oldﬁeld

(1961), respectively.

Statistical Models for Evaluating response to Soil N

Simple correlation and multiple regression were employed to evaluate various soil test
procedures to sugarbeet response. Among various statistical models evaluated the following
one gave the best results, so others are not reported.

Response = B0 + BIN1 + B2N2 + B,,N,2 + Ban

 

118

where: N1 is nitrate nitrogen and N2 is the organic N test and B, is the regression
coefﬁcient. The response to applied N was calculated by dividing the RWS yield for the
optimum N rate by the RWS of the control. Optimum N rate was evaluated using the LSD
(5%) to separate treatment means. When there was no response to applied N, the response
was recorded as 1.00. Recoverable white sugar sugar values were taken from Tables 3 and

11 in Chapter 3.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Soil Nitrogen

Soil organic and inorganic N was measured by various procedures for soil samples
taken from the cropping system study and N fertilizer rate studies at various locations.

Data in Table 1 contains the soil N test data for the samples taken during 1992 and
1993 from the cropping system study. Each procedure is expected to measure a diﬂ‘erent
fraction of soil N resulting in a diﬁ‘erent range of values. This was the ease for all procedures.
The phosphate-borate, anaerobic mineralization and KMnO4 extractions were able to
differentiate between cropping systems, while the other procedures did not. -

The phosphate-borate method diﬁ‘erentiated among cropping systems which contained
corn in 1992, but did not in 1993. Even though CCB had the highest extractable N in 1993,
the BeBeB system had a similar amount to the CCB system There was a fairly large range
in amount of N extracted with phosphate-borate in 1993, but the diﬁ‘erences among the
cropping systems were not signiﬁcant statistically. The relatively high N values for soils

under the CCB system reﬂect corn residues returned in these systems.

 

1 1 9

Anaerobic mineralization gave signiﬁcantly diﬁ‘erent results for the various cropping
systems in both years. However, the results were not consistent among cropping systems for
two years. In 1992, the test was greater for the CCB system than for BeBeB and the OBeB
systems. In 1993 the test did not diﬁ‘erentiate between systems which had larger amount of
residues ﬁ'om those with low amount of residues. For example, the amount of N mineralized
from the OBeB system was greater than that for the CCB system. It is not unreasonable to
expect that the OABeB system would have greater mineralization than the BeBeB system.
However, the amount mineralized here is similar to the OBeB system The reasons for low
N values with the anaerobic procedure during 1992 compared to 1993 are not clear.

The N extracted by KMnO4 was inconsistent ﬁ'om year to year. While the diﬁ‘erences
were signiﬁcant in 1992, this test did not reﬂect the amount of crop residues returned to the
soil In 1993, the diﬁ‘erences between systems were not signiﬁcantly diﬁ‘erent. The eﬁ‘ect of
corn residues on the Walkley-Black C is shown in both years for the CCB and the CBeB
cropping systems.

The results presented in Table 2 for 13 locations indicated that N measured with all
of these procedures showed signiﬁcam diﬁ‘erences among the various locations. This was not
surprising because each location was expected to have soils under different management
conditions giving different N supplying characteristics.

The highest values of N were found in the Zilwaukee series on the Fog 91 farm for
all procedures except KMnO,. This would be expected based on the carbon concentration
in this soil. The Tappan soil from the Ryers 91 location also had a high carbon concentration

and the associated tests were also high The lowest N values were observed in Knochel farm.

 

120

The diﬁ‘erences of long term management may account for such diﬁ‘erences in N values
among soils as well as differences between soils caused during soil formation.

One thing interesting is that although soils at various locations were found
signiﬁcantly different with regard to KMnO4 extracted N, the range in values was not as large
as with other procedures.

Soils at different locations within the same series also showed signiﬁcant diﬁ‘erences
of N with all procedures. Phosphate-borate N in the Tappan series ranged ﬁom 9.5 mg kg"
on Knochel 91 site to 69.5 on Ryers 91 site. With the same procedure on the Kilmanagh
series values ranged from 17.5 to 30.6 mg kg" for Maust 91 and Roggenbuck 91 sites,
respectively.

Other procedures also showed similar results. Anaerobic mineralized N values ranged
ﬁom 6.1 on Knochel 92 site to 46.7 mg kg" at Ryers 91 site on Tappan series. With the same
procedure mineralized N values ranged 16.5 to 32.9 mg kg" on Kilmanagh soil series.
Similarly, Walkley Black oxidizable carbon ranged ﬁom 0.973 to 1.22% at two diﬁ‘erent
locations in Parkhill series and it ranged ﬁ'om 0.682 to 5.08% for soils at diﬁ‘erent locations
in the Tappan series. These diﬁ‘erences in N at various locations within the same series may
be the result of previous management or could have existed ﬁom soil formation. The only
data available is the previous year's crop which is not enough to suggest any management
impact.

The goal in selecting procedures used in this study was to extract different ﬁactions
of organic N. The autoclaving procedure was used because it is a rigorous extraction of the

hydrolyzable fraction, while the phosphate-borate extraction is a less rigorous extraction of

121

the same fraction KMnO4 is an oxidative procedure. The anaerobic and aerobic incubation
methods release N through biological activity.

While comparing different procedures for organic N determination it was observed
that autoclaving gave the highest numbers followed by KMnO, and phosphate-borate. This
indicates that N ﬁom more resistant organic substances is released by autoclaving.
Phosphate-bomte seems to be moderate extractant compared to KMnO4 extraction, which
might be releasing some comparatively resistant material during oxidation. Anaerobic
mineralization released N is similar quantities to phosphate-borate, while aerobic
mineralization (mineralization potential, No) released larger quantities. Mineralization
potential is the result of a long term aerobic incubation and may be expected to release more

N that some other procedures.

Relationship among Sugarbeet Yield Parameters and Soil N tests

Data in Table 3 shows the relationship between various N indices and sugarbeet yield
parameters. There was a signiﬁcant correlation among all organic N procedures. However,
most showed a weak relationship accounting for less than 25% of the variability between the
methods. The procedures that related well were phosphate-borate with autoclavable N, and
Walkley-Black with autoclavable N. These methods evidently extract similar fractions of
organic N. Among all these procedures anaerobic incubation gave the lowest relationship
with other procedures. The relationship of KMnO, with all other procedures was negative,
which is diﬁcult to explain. I

Simple correlation coeﬁcients of sugarbeet yield and quality parameters and selected

122

soil organic N analyses are also given in Table 3. There were not any relationships which
accounted for a signiﬁcant amount of the variability in the data. The negative values between
some of the analyses and quality parameters reﬂect the negative eﬂ‘ect of nitrogen on beet
quality.

There were some signiﬁcant linear relationships between yield parameters themselves.
Yield was positively related to RWS and percent sugar and CJP were signiﬁcantly related to
RWS. These relationships are similar to the ﬁndings of previous studies (Hills and Ulrich,

1971; Hills et a1, 1978; and Carter and Traveler, 1981).

Correlation Between Yield Response and N Availability Indices.

Multiple regression techniques were used to describe relationships between the sugar
beet yield parameter, as the dependent variable, and soil mineral and organic N tests as
independent variables. Linear and squared terms were included for each independent variable.
Response of RWS to applied N was used as the yield parameter. Regression coeﬁcients and
associated coeﬁcients of determination (R2) for various soil series are given in Table 4. The
results indicated that in all soil series except Misteguay, phosphate-borate gave a signiﬁcant
relation to yield response. When the regression was calculated using all soils together, the
anaerobic mineralized N, autoclavable and KMnO4 procedures were found signiﬁcantly
related to yield response. However, none of the R2 values indicated suﬁcient precision for

the test to be used for predicting N fertilizer needs for sugar beet production.

 

1 2 3
CONCLUSION

The goal of this work was to develop a soil N test to predict N availability for sugar
beet. The work on the cropping systems study did not show a good relationship between any
of the tests and yield response in part because there were not large differences between the
various systems. Secondly, the relative ranking of extractable N concentrations were not
consistent between years.

Another goal was to determine if a soil test might work on individual soil series.
While the results indicate that there may be some success for individual series, the results do
not suggest that this approach would be workable. Some soil series like Tappan, Kilmanagh,
and Parkhill showed a signiﬁcant correlation with phosphate-bomte procedure but the value
of the correlation was not high enough and same regression model did not give signiﬁcant
correlation when soils were combined together. Differences of N. value among the soils
within the same series were as large as between the series which suggests that long term
management might be more inﬂuential on N availability than the soil series characteristics.

These results are similar to that of Varsa (1970) in that the chemical and biological
tests are not useful in predicting the availability of N ﬁom the organic fraction for making N

recommendations for sugar beet production.

LIST OF REFERENCES

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Bremner, J .M. 1965a. Nitrogen availability indexes. In C. A Black et al. (ed) Methods of
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Bremner, J.M. 1965b. Total nitrogen In C. A Black et al. (ed.) Methods of soil analysis, Part
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Bremner, J .M. 19650. Inorganic forms of nitrogen In C. A Black et al. (ed) Methods of soil
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Carruthers, A, and J .F .T. Oldﬁeld. 1961. Methods for assessment of beet quality. Intern.
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Carter J.N., D.T. Westermann, M.E. Jensen, and S.M. Bosma. 1975. Predicting N fertilizer
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Carter, J.N., and DJ. Traveller. 1981. Eﬂ'ect of time and amount of nitrogen uptake on
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Christenson, DR, C.E. Bricker, and RS. Gallagher. 1991. Crop yields as aﬂ‘ected by
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Dahnke, W.C., and EH. Vasey. 1973. Testing soils for nitrogen. p. 97-114. In L. M. Walsh
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Dexter, S.T. , M.G. Frakes, and F.W. Snyder. 1967. A rapid and practical method for
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124

125

Gianello, C., and J .M. Bremner. 1986. Comparison of chemical methods of assessing
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Gianello, C., and J .M. Bremner. 1988. A rapid steam distillation method of assessing
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Hills, F.J., and A Ulrich 1971. Nitrogen nutrition. pp.111-135. In RT. Johnson et al. (ed)
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Hills, F.J., F.E Broadbent, and M Fried. 1978. Timing and rate of fertilizer nitrogen for
sugarbeet related to nitrogen uptake and pollution potential. J. Environ. Qual. 7 :368-
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Keeney, DR 1982. Nitrogen management for maximum efﬁciency and minimum pollution.
In F.G. Stevenson (ed). Nitrogen in agricultural soils. Agronomy. Monogr. 2:605-
649. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA, Madison WI.

Kresge, C.B., and LG. Merkle. 1957. A study of the validity of laboratory techniques in
appraising the available nitrogen producing capacity of soils. Soil Sci.Soc. Am. Proc.
21:516-521.

Purvis, ER, and M.W.M. Leo. 1961. Rapid procedure for estimating potentially available
soil nitrogen under greenhouse conditions. J. Agric. Food Chem.9: 15-17.

Robinson, J .B.D. 1968a. A simple available soil nitrogen index 1. Laboratory and greenhouse
studies. J. Soil Sci. 269-279.

Robinson, J .B.D. 1968b. A simple available soil nitrogen index. II. Field crop evaluation. J.
Soil Sci. 19:280-299.

Robinson, J .B.D. 1968c. Chemical index for available soil nitrogen. East Aﬁica Agric. For.
J. 33:299-301.

Sahrawat, K.L. 1982. Simple modiﬁcation of the Walkley-Black method for simultaneous
determination of organic carbon and potentially mineralizable nitrogen in tropical rice
soils. Plant and Soil. 69:73-77.

Serna, MD, and F. Pomares. 1992. Evaluation of chemical indices of soil organic nitrogen
availability in calcareous soils. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 56: 1486-1491.

Smith S.J., and G. Stanford. 1971. Evaluation of a chemical index of soil nitrogen availability.
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126

Stanford, G., and W.H. DeMar. 1969. Extraction of soil organic nitrogen by autoclaving in
water. 1. The NaOH-distillable fraction as an index of soil nitrogen availability. Soil
Sci. 107:203-205.

Stanford, G., and 8.]. Smith. 1976. Estimating potentially mineralizable soil nitrogen from
chemical index of soil nitrogen availability. Soil Sci. 122: 71-76.

Stanford, G., 1982. Assessment of soil nitrogen availability. In F .J . Stevenson (ed) Nitrogen
in agricultural soils. Agronomy. 22:651-688. Am Soc. Agron. Madison. Wisconsin.

Subbiah, B.V., and G.L. Asija. 1956. A rapid procedure for the estimation of available
nitrogen in soils. Current Sci. 25:259-260.

Varsa, EC. 1970. The use of soil and petiole tests for detecting residual nitrogen and for
predicting responses of sugar beets (Beta vulgaris) to nitrogen fertilization. PHD
Dissertation. Michigan State Univ. East Lansing.

Walkley, A, and IA Black. 1934. An examination of the Degtjareﬂ‘ method for determining
soil organic matter, and a modiﬁcation of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Sci.
3 7 :29-3 8.

Walkley, A, 1935. An estimation of methods for determining organic carbon and nitrogen
in soils. J. Agric. Sci. 25:588-609.

Walkley, A. 1947. A critical examination of a rapid method for determining organic carbon
in soils-eﬁ‘ect of variation in digestion condition and of inorganic soil constituents.
Soil Sci. 63:251-264.

Waring, SA, and J .M. Bremner. 1964. Ammonium production in soil under waterlogged
conditions as an index of nitrogen availability. Nature 201: 951-952.

Wilson, C.B.Jr., RJ. Norman, BR Wells, and MD. Correll. 1994a. Chemical estimation of
nitrogen mineralization in paddy rice soils: Comparison to laboratory indices.
Commun. Soil Sci. Plant Anal. 252573-590.

 

127

 

 

 

 

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SUMMARY

The main goal of this study was to investigate the N availability for sugarbeet crop
under various soil types, cropping systems and N fertilizer rates in the lake bed region of
Michigan. Sugar beet yield and quality parameters along with soil N status with several
procedures were measured. Long term incubation studies were carried out to investigate the
effect of soil type, cropping system and sampling time on N mineralization. Simple
correlation and regression techniques were employed to investigate the relationship between
response to applied N fertilizer and soil test values.

The results of the experiments can be summarized as following:

1. Long term aerobic incubation showed that general trend for cumulative N
mineralized was same for all cropping systems and soils. The rate of
mineralization was rapid in the beginning of the incubation and gradually
declined with time.

2. Nitrogen mineralization potential did not show any interaction of cropping
system and sampling time. However, cropping systems showed signiﬁcant
diﬂ‘erences. No values were higher for corn-corn-sugarbeet than for other

systems reﬂecting the amount of residues returned to the soil in the 20 years

132

 

1 3 3
of cropping previous to this study. Sampling time did not show any diﬁ‘erence
of N mineralization potential during 1992 while, signiﬁcant diﬁ‘erences were
found during 1993.
Soil samples from various locations showed wide diﬁ‘erences of N
mineralization potential. Due to large diﬂ‘erences of N0 values for soils within
the same series, soils could not be grouped based on series characteristics.
Generally higher N0 values and lower K values were obtained with hyperbolic
model compared to exponential model. However, instantaneous rate of
reaction calculated with both exponential and hyperbolic model gave a very
high correlation, which means that both models can'be used to describe N
mineralization potential of soils.
Active N fraction gave a reciprocal relationship with soil organic carbon.
Soils with highest oxidizable carbon content gave lowest active N fraction
value.
Diﬁ‘erences in recoverable white sugar (RWS), root yield, percent sugar and
clear juice purity were observed among the cropping systems and different
types of soils. RWS and beet yield was found to be lower in the systems
where higher amounts of corn residues were added.
Response to fertilizer N was variable among diﬁ‘erent locations. At some
locations no response to applied N was observed, while at some other
locations response was observed even at the highest N rate (146 kg N ha").

Percent sugar and clear juice purity gave a reciprocal relationship with N rate

 

10.

11.

12.

134

in both experiments. However, recoverable sugar generally increased with
increasing N rate, indicating that increased yield compensated for the decline
in sugar concentration.

N concentration in leaf blades was less than the critical level in all treatments,
so it is not possible to draw any relationship with yield response.

Among several soil tests for N, phosphate-horate, anaerobic mineralization
and KMnO, extraction were able to diﬁ‘erentiate among the cropping systems.
Relatively high N values in CCB system by these procedures reﬂected the
addition of corn residues.

Soils at various locations showed signiﬁcant differences in N concentration
with all procedures. This might be the result of diﬁ‘erences in long term
management practices, but due to limited information concerning past
management this inference could not be veriﬁed.

Soils at diﬁ‘erent locations belonging to the same series also showed
signiﬁcant differences with regard to N values with various procedures. This
indicated that soils can not be grouped on the basis of series characteristics for
fertility evaluation or fertilizer recommendations.

None of the tests showed a good relationship with yield response. Although,
signiﬁcant correlation between phosphate-borate test and yield response was
observed in some soil series, the relationship is not strong enough to suggest

the use of this test for N availability prediction.

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