Effects of N:P ratio of Artemisia ordosica on growth influenced by soil calcium carbonate

摘要

Soil calcium carbonate (CaCO3) has a strong solid phosphorus effect, and high content of CaCO3 can significantly reduce the effectiveness of soil phosphorus. To reveal the limiting effect of soil CaCO3 on the growth of plants on sand land and its mechanism of plant physiology, we performed pot experiments with a two-factor randomized block design and a three-factor orthogonal design for different soil CaCO3 content treatments using Artemisia ordosica seedlings. In the experiments, we surveyed plant height, aboveground biomass, root length and root weight and analyzed N, P concentrations and RNA content of the seedlings, and discussed the relationships between relative growth rate (RGR) of the seedlings and N:P ratio as well as RNA. Results show that, the RGRs of plant height and above-ground biomass of the seedlings decreased significantly with the increase of soil CaCO3 content, and those for root length and root weight decreased. The RGRs of plant height and above-ground biomass of the seedlings were significantly negatively correlated with leaf N:P ratios, but significantly positively correlated with leaf RNA content and leaf P concentrations. It can be seen that soil CaCO3 is a stress factor for the growth of A. ordosica seedlings, and the growth response of the seedlings under the influence of soil CaCO3 is in line with the Growth Rate Hypothesis.