Histosols (also known as organic soils, mucks, or peats) are soils that are dominated by organic matter (OM > 20%) in half or more of the upper 80 cm. Forty two states have a total of 21 million ha of Histosols in the United States. These soils, when intensively cropped, are subject to wind erosion resulting in loss of crop productivity and degradation of soil, air, and water quality. Estimatin...

The toxicity of chromium (Cr) to biota is related to its chemical forms and consequently to the redox conditions of soils. Hexavalent Cr[Cr(VI)] may undergo natural attenuation through reduction processes. In this study, the reduction kinetics of Cr(VI) in seven soils and its relationships with soil properties were investigated with laboratory incubation experiments. The results indicate that t...

The use of waste materials as organic amendments in soil remediation can affect metal solubility; this interaction will vary with the characteristics of the organic matter that is added to the soil. A pot experiment was carried out in a calcareous, metal-polluted soil, using Beta maritima L. as an indicator species for the treatment effects on metal solubility. The treatments were: fresh solid ...

Soil is important among all the components of terrestrial ecosystems and is a main source of production in agriculture. Since soil is a dynamic system there is a continuous reaction between soil minerals, organic matter and organisms. These reactions influences physiochemical and biological properties of soil. Soil phosphatases is one of enzyme which plays a major role in the mineralisation pro...

returning crop residues into the soil as a source of organic matter are an important source of copper and can play an important role in the soil fertility. in addition to the role of the organic matter in increasing the concentration of micronutrients in soil solution, attention should be also paid to the role of the kind and the quantity of the root’s exudates released in response to the incor...

Knorr et al. (2005) concluded that soil organic carbon pools with longer turnover times are more sensitive to temperature. We show that this conclusion is equivocal, largely dependent on their specific selection of data and does not persist when the data set of Kätterer et al. (1998) is analysed in a more appropriate way. Further, we analyse how statistical properties of the model parameters ma...

This study investigates whether different intensities of organic matter removal associated with timber harvest influence decadal-scale storage of soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) in the top 1 m of mineral soil 18 years postharvest in a Pinus taeda L. forest in the Gulf Coastal Plain. We quantified forest harvest-related changes in SOC, TN, microbial biomass carbon (MBC), and ni...

Earthworms affect nitrogen cycling directly through the consumption and assimilation of organic N and the turnover of N through excretion and mortality. Although earthworms can process large quantities of organic matter, organic-matter consumption by earthworms based on their nitrogen requirements has not been quanti®ed. Organic-matter consumption and the ef®ciency of nitrogen assimilation by e...

Soils are the major terrestrial reservoir of persistent organic pollutants, and thus net volatilization from soil, when it happens, may exert a control on the atmospheric occurrence and variability of organic pollutants. Here, we report and discuss the concentrations of legacy organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) such as hexachlorobenzene (HCB), hexaclorocyclohexanes (HCH) and dichlorodiphenyltrich...