Effect of Waterlogged and Aerobic Incubation on Enzyme Activities in Paddy Soil

An incubation experiment with soil water content treatments of 0.15 （W1）, 0.20 （W2）, and 0.40 （W3） g g^-1 soil was carried out for two months to investigate the activities of important enzymes involved in C, N, P, and S cycling in a paddy soil from the Taihu Lake region, China, under waterlogged and aerobic conditions. Compared with air-dried soil, waterlogging resulted in a significant decrease （P ≤ 0.05） of fluorescein diacetate （FDA） and /3-D-glucosidase activities, and this effect was enhanced with increasing waterlogging time. Waterlogging also significantly inhibited （P ≤ 0.05） arylsulfatase as well as alkaline and acid phosphatase activities, but did not decrease the activities with the increase in waterlogging time. Short-term waterlogging did not affect urease activity, but prolonged waterlogging decreased it markedly. In contrast, the aerobic incubation （W1 and W2 treatments） significantly increased （P ≤ 0.05） FDA, alkaline phosphatase, and /3-D-glucosidase activities. With aerobic treatments the activities of FDA and alkaline phosphatase increased with incubation time, whereas /3-D-glucosidase activity decreased. A significant difference （P ≤ 0.05） was usually observed between the W1 and W2 treatments for the activities of FDA as well as alkaline and acid phosphatase; however,/3-D-glucosidase and urease were usually not significant （P ≤ 0.05）. No activity differences were observed between waterlogging and aerobic incubation for arylsulfatase and urease.

Effects of soil moisture and soil depth on nitrogen mineralization process under Mongolian pine plantations in Zhanggutai sandy land, P. R. China

The rates of soil N mineralization at soil depths of 0-15, 15-30, 30-45 and45-60 cm and moisture regimes were measured at three sand-fixation plantations of Pinus sylvestrisvar. mongolica by laboratory aerobic incubation method. The results showed that average rates ofsoil net N-mineralization across soil depth varied from 1.06 to 7.52 mg · kg^(-1)·month^(-1) atsoil depths from 0 to 60 cm. Statistical analyses indicated that the effects of different soildepths, moistures and their interactions on net N-mineralization rates were significant (P < 0.05).The net N-mineralization rates significantly decreased with increasing soil depths and at depth 0-15cm accounted for 60.52% of that at depth of 0-60 cm. There was no difference in soil netN-mineralization rates between half and fully-saturated water treatments, however these rates weresubstantially higher than that without water treatment (P < 0.05). The factors influencing Nmineralization process have to be studied further in these semiarid pine ecosystems.

Nitrogen Mineralization Potentials of Upland Soils inCentral China

Nitrogen mineralization potentials of 15 soil samples were studied by the methods of soil asrobic incuba-tion, and the correlation between the potentials and the amounts of nitrogen taken up by rye grass (Lolium.multifiorum Lam.) in pot culture was calculated. The soils were collected from Hubei Province in Cen-tral China. Soil nitrogen mineralization potentials (N_O) were calculated and optimized by a quick-BASICprogram. N_O ranged from 60 mg kg￣(-1) to 340 mg kg￣(-1), which accounted for 9.1% to 34.6% of the totalnitrogen content. Among the examined soils, yellow-brown soil collected from Wuhan had the largest N_Oand brown-red soil from Xianning had the smallest one. The mineralization rate constants (k) ranged from0.00556 d￣(-1) to 0.01280 d￣(-1) , in average 0.00882 d￣(-1) . Chao soil from Wuhan had the greatest k while yellow-cinnamon soil from Zhaoyang had the smallest one. There were apparent differences between mineralizationparameters (N_O and k) optimized and non-optimized ones. Optimized N_O had a better correlation thannon-optimized N_O with the amount of nitrogen accumulated in the aerial parts of rye grass. N_O , N_O × k andN_t(accumulated mineralized nitrogen within time t) could be used as indexes of soil nitrogen supply. Amongthem N_t was the best, which was significantly correlated with the amounts of nitrogen accumulated in theaerial parts of rye grass harvested at three different times.