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Origin and fate of soil lipids in a Phaeozem under rye and maize monoculture in Central Germany

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Abstract

Although soil lipids are an important class of soil organic substances, which is involved in numerous soil processes, their origin and fate in soils is insufficiently known. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the free lipid fraction in crop residues and farmyard manure (FYM), and soils which received these materials for long time. We sampled rye and maize stubble and roots, FYM, and Ap horizon soils from the ‘Unfertilized’ and ‘FYM’ plots of ‘Eternal Rye Cultivation’ experiment at Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Free lipids were extracted by dichloromethane/acetone and analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Aliphatics were most abundant in all extracts, accounting for 61 to 77% of the total extractable lipids. By comparing the lipid composition of the added organic materials with that of the corresponding treated soil, the long-chain members of n-alkanols, n-alkanes, α,ω-alkanedioic acids, and unsaturated alkanoic acids from C16 to C19 did not disappear in soil whereas ω-hydroxyalkanoic acids and long-chain branched alkanoic acids were not extracted from soil probably because they were bound to nonextractable forms. It is suggested that the methodological approach can give information on decomposition and retention of free extractable lipids in soil. More information is needed to trace the fate of all lipids in the plant–soil system by the determination of bound molecules, which are nonextractable by organic solvents.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support was provided by the DFG priority program ‘Soils as source and sink for CO2—mechanisms and regulation of organic matter stabilization in soils’ (Project Le 903/3). The authors are grateful to the staff of the Faculty of Agriculture (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany) for the support in soil sampling and providing data from the long-term experiments. Thanks also to S. Foran and J. Kruse (University of Rostock, Institute for Land Use, Soil Science, Germany) for their contributions to this work.

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  1. Institute for Land Use, University of Rostock, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 6, 18051, Rostock, Germany

    G. Jandl, P. Leinweber & H. R. Schulten

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  1. G. Jandl
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  2. P. Leinweber
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  3. H. R. Schulten
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Correspondence to G. Jandl.

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Jandl, G., Leinweber, P. & Schulten, H.R. Origin and fate of soil lipids in a Phaeozem under rye and maize monoculture in Central Germany. Biol Fertil Soils 43, 321–332 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-006-0109-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-006-0109-2

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