Abstract
The agricultural fields were contaminated by the radionuclides 134Cs and 137Cs after the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima. Prior to the accident, local farmers had successfully established sustainable agriculture in Iitate Village using natural farming practices and recycling. Since 2011, decontamination work such as stripping-off the top soil has been ongoing on agricultural land. Although decontamination is essential, it could cause an unfortunate decrease in soil fertility. Here, we examined the use of organic matter as a means to quickly recover the fertility of the agricultural top soil. We transplanted rice crops into three paddy plots: one received rice straw that had been harvested there last year, another received composted manure, and the third (control) received no additives after decontamination. We applied 40 kg/10a of basal fertilizer and 20 kg/10a of KCl each plot. The rates of Cs concentration in unhulled rice/rice straw were around 0.001. Tendency of plant heights increase and leaf chlorophyll content decrease were similar in the three treatment plots. However, the numbers of stems on 111 days after the transplant were 21, 15, and 19, unhulled rice yield were 513, 462, and 310 g/m2, in the rice straw, cattle manure compost, and control plots, respectively. Soil properties of three plots were similar. Radioactive Cs concentrations in the new rice from each treatment plots were lower than the maximum allowed level set by the Japanese government. These results revealed that treating soil with rice straw might have great potential to aid the recovery of a paddy field after stripping-off the top soil. Notably, this treatment significantly improved the yield of rice and supplied organic matter without additional labor.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Program for Establishing Strategic Research Foundations in Private Institutes (Grant Number S0901028, PI:KN) by MEXT, the Reconstruction Supporting Project by Ibaraki University, and JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Number 26511004, PI:JN). We are grateful to the members of (NPO) Resurrection of Fukushima, the members of the Todai Madei circle in the University of Tokyo, Mr. Hitoshi Ueda of Center for Water Environment Studies, Ibaraki University, Dr. Takeshi Tokida of National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, and Dr. Tomohito Sano of NARO Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science for their assistance.
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Nishiwaki, J., Asagi, N., Komatsuzaki, M. et al. Effect of added organic matter on soil fertility after stripping-off Cs-contaminated top soil at Iitate village in Fukushima Prefecture. Paddy Water Environ 15, 11–18 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-016-0524-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-016-0524-4