Peculiarities of ammonium sorption in soils of various granulometric composition

Abstract

The paper shows that, in the case of fertilizing soils with ammonium nitrate, sands and sandy loams absorb ammonium nitrogen much more than loams. The positive relationship of the recently introduced ammonium nitrogen and negative relationship of nitrate nitrogen with the coarsest (sandy) fractions of the studied soils with a particle size of 1–0.05 mm were noted. In the clay fractions with a particle size of 0.05–0.001 mm, the ammonium content is negatively correlated with the particle size, and this correlation for the content of nitrates is, on the contrary, positive. Before the introduction of fertilizers, exchange ammonium and nitrates were concentrated in finely dispersed fractions of both sandy loam and loamy soils.