Abstract
A model is formulated to describe the amount of effective phosphorus in soil. For a source that is immediately fully effective only three parameters are required — the amount of effective phosphorus initially present, the proportion of phosphorus remaining effective after each year, and a parameter which determines the lower limit for the amount of effective phosphorus. An extension of the model to sources that release their phosphorus slowly requires one further parameter — the fraction of such phosphorus released each year. The effective phosphorus in soil is then related to yield using the Mitscherlich equation.
The model gave a good description of the growth response ofStylosanthes humilis to superphosphate and calcined Christmas Island C-grade phosphate (CCICP) over three years on a red earth at Katherine, N.T. Furthermore, it enabled a quantitative assessment to be made of the residual value of the CCICP that was not achieved in an earlier analysis of the data.
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Probert, M. A conceptual model for initial and residual responses to phosphorus fertilizers. Fertilizer Research 6, 131–138 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01051007
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01051007