Effects of contrasting N-enriched biochar applications on paddy soil and rice leaf phosphorus fractions in subtropical China

Biochar has been proved to be an important soil amendment to alleviate soil phosphorus (P) in the paddy crops. How-ever, the role of specially prepared biochar (N-enriched biochar) on the distribution and transformation of P soil in and rice leaves needs to be revealed. In this study, we studied in a field experiment the effects of two different levels of ap-plication of N-enriched biochar on the P fractions of soil and leaves. The results showed that: (1) in early rice, both rates of N-enriched biochar increased soil concentrations of labile inorganic P (Pi) (+51.5 % and +66.2 %, respec-tively) and labile organic P (Po) (+167 % and + 76.9 %, respectively) and moderately labile Pi (+37.8 % and +27.8 %, respectively) and decreased soil concentration of moderately labile Po (-17.0 % and -52.7 %, respec-tively) in the 0-15 cm layer. Soil total P concentration was positively correlated with soil labile P fractions and mod-erately labile Pi concentrations (p < 0.05); (2) in early and late rice, application of the biochar at 4 t ha-1 increased rice leaf concentration of inorganic (+13.3 % and +34.8 %, respectively), nucleic acid (+24.2 % and +13.0 %, respec-tively) (p < 0.05). The foliar inorganic and nucleic acid P concentrations were positively correlated with foliar total P concentrations; (3) redundancy analysis showed that with the application of N-enriched biochar, soil total carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and P concentration were important factors affecting the chemical forms of soil P, while soil organic matter, soil total P and leaf total P content were important factors affecting the chemical forms of leaf P; (4) allometric growth models showed that under the application of N-enriched biochar, 0-30 cm soil labile Po concentration was pos-itively related to leaf concentration of nucleic acid P, 0-15 cm soil moderately labile Pi concentration was positively related to leaf concentration of inorganic P and nucleic acid P. Thus, this study provides evidence that N-enriched bio-char increase the soil P-availability of labile and moderately labile P that in turn improved rice plants P use efficiency.

Automated summary

This study investigated the effects of two different levels of N-enriched biochar on the distribution and transformation of soil and leaf phosphorus. The results showed that N-enriched biochar increased soil concentrations of labile and moderately labile inorganic phosphorus and decreased soil concentration of labile organic phosphorus. It also increased rice leaf concentration of inorganic and nucleic acid phosphorus. The study suggests that N-enriched biochar can improve the availability of phosphorus in soil and enhance rice plants' phosphorus use efficiency.