Characterization and Impact of Cattle Manure Particle Size on Physical Properties of Sandy Soils

摘要

Sandy soils have poor physical properties, which cause them to drain quickly and not hold water well ; however , with the addition of cattle manure, sandy soil can be improved. Therefore, experiments were conducted to investigate the characterization and impact of different particle sizes of cattle manure (CMS) on improving some physical properties of sandy soil and thus the yield of lettuce. Cattle manure was ground to powder and was sieved with three different Particle sizes 4.76-2 (CMS1), 2-0.8 (CMS2), 0.8-0.4 (CMS3) mm. Some physical properties were measured for different Particle sizes of manure. A batch of sorption experiments w as carried out to study the role of different Particle sizes of manure on adsorption of N, P and K from aqueous solution. Two experiments were carried out on sandy soil (pots and field) to study the impact of adding CMS (5 ton/fed) to enhance some physical properties of sandy soil. The results indicated that the physical properties of cattle manure changed based on particle size fractionation, where Bulk density and saturated water holding capacity increased as particle size decreased, while porosity reduced as particle size decreased. The results of the sorption parameters of N, P and K on different particle sizes of manure indicated that maximum sorption occurred on CMS 3 for both P and K according to Langmuir and Freundlich sorption models. Two experiments showed that CMS had affected significantly the total porosity (TP), bulk density (Bd), slowly drainable pores (SDP), water holding pores and (WHP) available water (AW) in comparison to control. The CMS had a slight effect on Quickly-drainable pores (QDP) and fine capillary pores (FCP) as compared to the control in both experiments. Fresh weight, dry weight and number of leaf lettuce increased significantly with decreasing particle sizes of cattle manure as compared to control.