Effects of Soil Drying on Soil pH and Nutrient Extractability

A sample set from a field experiment conducted at two sites, a commercial organic potato farm and a conventionally managed experiment station farm, was used to compare the extractability of nutrients in field-moist and air-dried soils. Standard soil characterization methods of the Maine Soil Testing Service were used to determine soil pH and extractable nutrient content. The data were analyzed with Systat using paired t-tests. Air drying decreased soil pH and increased extractability of calcium, micronutrients, and metals. Many of the observed changes were probably a result of increasing surface acidity with drying. Drying increased the extractability of inorganic phosphorus, probably because of disruption of aluminophosphate complexes, particularly in conventionally managed soils, which had received high amounts of inorganic phosphorus fertilizer. Drying also increased the extractability of complexed phosphorus, probably both organically and inorganically complexed phosphorus, and decreased the extractability of potassium, probably by enhancing potassium fixation in clay interlayers.