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Possible Use of Wood Ash and Compost for Improving Acid Tropical Soils

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Recycling of Biomass Ashes

Abstract

Infertility of acid soils is a major limitation to crop production on highly weathered and leached soils throughout the world. The main characteristics of these soils are their low pH, low levels of organic matter, Ca, Mg, P, or Mo deficiency, Al or Mn toxicity, or both, and very low mineralization and nitrification rates. Lime is generally recommended to correct soil acidity, but lime is unaffordable for resource-poor farmers in the tropics. Many alternatives have been proposed, and among them products from organic waste materials, e.g., composts, have proven to be an efficient alternative to the use of lime. Wood ash is a potential source of trace elements, nutrients, and lime. Wood ash could be used as an additive to fertilizer, and wood ash admixture to organic wastes prior to composting is known to improve compost quality and may reduce the amount of compost required to raise the pH to suitable levels. Wood ash compost as a liming agent as a replacement for lime could potentially aid in remediating acidity and base deficiency as well as boosting the soil microbial pool in tropical agricultural soils.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Biochemistry, University of Yaoundé I, 812, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Blaise Pascal Bougnom & François-Xavier Etoa

  2. Institute of Microbiology, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25 d, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Brigitte Amalia Knapp & Heribert Insam

Authors
  1. Blaise Pascal Bougnom
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  2. Brigitte Amalia Knapp
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  3. François-Xavier Etoa
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  4. Heribert Insam
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Blaise Pascal Bougnom .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Mikrobiologie, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria

    Heribert Insam

  2. Inst. Mikrobiologie, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria

    Brigitte A. Knapp

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Bougnom, B.P., Knapp, B.A., Etoa, FX., Insam, H. (2011). Possible Use of Wood Ash and Compost for Improving Acid Tropical Soils. In: Insam, H., Knapp, B. (eds) Recycling of Biomass Ashes. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19354-5_7

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