Rice straw biochar impact on physiological and biochemical attributes of Fokienia hodginsii in acidic soil

ABSTRACT

Increasing the forest's productivity is a global concern and there is a need to develop innovative technologies. The use of biochar (BC) in the restoration of degraded sites is mounting. Therefore, to assess the effects of rice straw biochar (BR) on soil physicochemical properties and physiology of Fokienia hodginsii, a one-year greenhouse pot experiment was conducted. The soil was mixed with BR at four different levels; 0, 5, 20, and 80 g kg⁻¹of soil as B0, BR5, BR20, and BR80, respectively. The light-response curves of photosynthesis were constructed by using the modified model of rectangular hyperbola including photosynthetic pigments and biochemical attributes quarterly. BR treated seedlings responded with a significant increase in the photosynthetic rate at first, second, and fourth season, respectively. Increasing the proportion of BR in the soil significantly influenced the soil pH and P availability. At the final harvest, improved soil and physiology promoted the seedling biomass (36%) under BR80 compared to B0. Therefore, these findings suggest that BR can be used to combat soil acidification and P availability in P deficit soil. Its amendment into the soil can be useful to alleviate the physiological performance of the conifer seedlings, but its effects may vary with soil type and BC feed-stock.

KEYWORDS:

• Fokienia hodginsii
• biochar
• degraded
• light-response curve
• biochemical attributes

Acknowledgments

The author thanks anonymous reviewers who provided helpful suggestions and critical comments on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Muhammad Waqqas Khan Tarin http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7636-3893

Lili Fan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9673-0881

Lu Shen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3777-2149

Jinli Lai http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8086-1166

Jingwen Li http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6617-7288

Zhiwen Deng http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8597-4247

Lingyan Chen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2776-8303

Tianyou He http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7300-2539

Jundong Rong http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8733-8500

Yushan Zheng http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9545-0984

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Science and Technology Major Projects of Fujian Province [2018NZ0001-1], Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University Science and Technology Development Fund Project [KF2015085], and Fujian Seedling Science and Technology Research Project P. R. China.