Impact of BioChar on Water Characteristics of a Chinese Severe Saline Agricultural Soil

摘要

BioChar soil amendment has been accepted as a low-risk soil carbon sequestration method. Some other agricultural benefits also reported in previous researches. Two kinds of bioChars, produced from walnut shell and soft wood, with significantly different surface characteristics and a severe saline sandy loam soil was used in our research. Physical and chemical parameters of bioChar and soil were analyzed. The results pressure plate analysis indicated that high surface area bioChar can increase water retention and plant available water in severe saline agriculture soil, however, such effect wasn't observed in all the low surface area bioChar treatments. Based on these results, a simulated soil water loss experiment was conducted under 3 different temperatures (from 25°C to 40°C), with 4 bioChar doses for 120 h. Our results shown that high dose of high surface area bioChar can reduce the rate of soil water loss under high temperature. Such effect indicated that high surface area bioCahr can help soil hold more water under lab condition and simulated field condition. In bioChar soil application, the interaction between bioChar, soil and climate condition needs to be considered carefully to acheive optimum solution for both environmental and agricultural purposes.