Abstract
Purpose
Multi-cutting and livestock excrement application are two key agricultural practices affecting nutrient cycling in the plant-soil system of sown grasslands. However, little is known about the combination of multi-cutting and livestock excrement application on nitrogen mineralization and utilization and their mechanisms regulating plant growth.
Methods
The experiment was carried out in a salinized grassland at Linze Grassland Agricultural Station, Gansu Province, China. We tested the effects of plant multi-cutting (MC), sheep excrement (SE), multi-cutting and sheep excrement (MC + SE), and plant only (CK) on the soil nitrogen mineralization and plant growth of two forage plants, the spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L., cv. Yongliang 15) and common vetch (Vicia sativa L., cv. Lanjian 3). We measured the plant height, branch number, tiller number and crude protein content, and soil nitrification rate, ammonium rate, microbial nitrogen and microbial carbon, and abundance of soil ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea.
Results
MC and MC + SE significantly increased plant height, dry matter, and branch and tiller number of both forage crops. Although crude protein content and tiller number of spring wheat in SE decreased, these in MC + SE increased. SE and MC + SE significantly promoted nitrification rate in the soil by increasing the soil microbial nitrogen and soil ammonia-oxidizing bacteria abundance of the two forage crops.
Conclusions
Combined application of both multi-cutting and sheep excrement could accelerate soil nitrogen mineralization and plant nitrogen uptake, which could be considered in pasture management to improve the sustainable productivity of grass-soil systems of sown grassland.
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Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Xvlei Liu, Yueting Pan, and Fuyao Liu for assistance with laboratory analysis. We thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions, which have significantly improved the paper.
Funding
This research was funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20100102); the National Program for S&T Collaboration of Developing Countries (KY202002011); the Key R&D Program of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (2019BBF02001); the Program for Innovative Research Team of Chinese Ministry of Education (IRT_17R50); Lanzhou City's scientific research funding subsidy to Lanzhou University.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Lina Shi, Shenghua Chang, Cheng Zhang and Wuchen Du. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Xinzhou Zhao. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhao, X., Shi, L., Chang, S. et al. Multi-cutting and sheep excrement influence plant growth and soil nitrogen mineralization in sown grassland. Plant Soil 478, 533–544 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05485-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05485-3