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Abstract
The residual effect of low doses of lantana, pine needles and wheat straw phyto-biochars pyrolyzed at 300 °C and 450 °C and enriched with 0, 50, 75 and 100% of recommended doses of fertilizers (RDF) of micronutrients and S was studied on the yields, nutrient concentration and uptake of second crop, i.e. rice (Oryza sativa L.) after fodder maize to validate their nutrient slow-release characteristics. The residual effect of phyto-biochars averaged over different RDF increased rice grain yield significantly under lantana and pine needles phyto-biochars pyrolyzed at 300 °C, but decreased with pine needles biochar pyrolyzed at 450 °C as compared to the control. The highest grain yield (9.43 g pot−1) was under pine needles phyto-biochar pyrolyzed at 300 °C and enriched initially with 75% of RDF, which was 7.8 per cent higher than that with 75% of RDF applied through conventional fertilizer sources. The residual effect of some treatments significantly increased the readily oxidizable C and extractable Zn, Cu, Fe, Mn, B and S in the soil after rice harvest. For fodder maize + rice crops together, pine needles phyto-biochar pyrolyzed at 300 °C or lantana phyto-biochar pyrolyzed at 450 °C with enrichment of 75% RDF of micronutrients and S gave the higher apparent per cent utilization of Zn, Fe, Mn, and S, but numerically closer per cent utilization values for Cu and B in comparison to the conventional chemical fertilizer sources.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.