Use of biostimulants on soil restoration: Effects on soil biochemical properties and microbial community
Highlights
► The application of biostimulants had a positive effect on soil biology. ► Soil biodiversity was highest in soil amended with biostimulants with higher percentage of peptides (<0.3 kDa). ► The application of biostimulants favours the appearance of spontaneous vegetation. ► The application of biostimulants may be considered a good strategy for recovering semiarid areas.
Introduction
Increasingly, organic soil amendments are being examined for their potential use in soil restoration and for preventing soil erosion. Recent years have seen an increase in the application to semiarid soils for soil restoration purposes of organic wastes with a high organic matter content, usually composted, such as urban waste (Ros et al., 2003), plant materials derived from the municipal landscape (Walker, 2003), cotton gin compost (Tejada et al., 2006a), beet vinasse composted with a crushed cotton gin compost (Tejada et al., 2006b), vermicomposts (Tejada et al., 2010), etc.
In the recent years, there has been increasing use of hydrolysates organic biofertilizers or biostimulants (BS) obtained from different organic materials by hydrolysis reactions. These BS, generally comprising peptides, amino acids, polysaccharides, humic acids, phytohormones, etc., are directly absorbed by soil microorganisms and plants which spend a smaller amount of energy in the absorption process (García-Martínez et al., 2010a, García-Martínez et al., 2010b). This has a positive effect not only on growth but also on the quality and production of the fruit or grain harvested (Parrado et al., 2008). The aim of these products is not to provide nutrition, but rather to encourage and stimulate plant metabolism, stress reduction, etc. (Parrado et al., 1991, Parrado et al., 2006, Parrado et al., 2007, Parrado et al., 2008). Therefore, the development of new BS has become the focus of interest in research.
Normally, soils degraded by erosion processes are characterized by low organic matter content and therefore, low microbial activity, which ultimately hinders the establishment of plant cover (Tejada et al., 2009, Tejada et al., 2010). To recover these degraded soils, the most effective way is to improve quality by adding organic materials. Therefore, this suggests that land application of BS to the soil could improve the soil's microbial population quickly and thus support the development of plant cover.
Biologically and biochemically mediated processes in soils are of the utmost importance to ecosystem function. Soil microbes are the driving force behind many soil processes including the transformation of organic matter (Miltner et al., 2004), nutrient release (Wichern et al., 2007) and degradation of xenobiotics (Zabaloy et al., 2008). Many studies have shown that biological parameters have been used to assess soil quality and health as affected by agricultural practices (Gianfreda et al., 2005, Truu et al., 2008, García-Ruiz et al., 2009). In this respect, soil enzymes can be used as potential soil quality indicators for sustainable management because they are sensitive to ecological stress and land management practices (Tejada, 2009). Enzymes may react to changes in soil management more quickly than other variables and therefore may be useful as early indicators of biological changes (Zabaloy et al., 2008).
On the hand, the number of physiological groups of bacteria has also to be useful when measuring structural changes in soil due to several anthropogenic factors (Ratcliff et al., 2006, Zabaloy et al., 2008, Zhang et al., 2010). Therefore, the comparison of the soil enzymatic activities and biodiversity could be of help when evaluating the impacts of BS on soils.
Currently there are no studies that examine the incidence of BS in the restoration of degraded soils. The aim of this paper was to study the influence of different BS on soil biological activity, soil microbial community and soil restoration in a semiarid Mediterranean ecosystem.
Section snippets
Site description
The study was conducted from October 2003 to October 2006 near Córdoba (Guadalquivir Valley, Andalusia, Spain). The climate of the study area is semiarid with an average annual precipitation of 400 mm for the three experimental years, concentrated in the spring and autumn months. The mean annual temperature of the three experimental years was 17.3 °C and the mean potential evapotranspiration was 700 mm/year−1. Thus, the long-term water deficit, calculated by the Thorntwaite method, is 436 mm. July
Characterization of soil biostimulants
The final enzymatic vegetable extracts are brown syrup, completely soluble in water. Table 2 shows the main chemical characteristics, proteins and carbohydrates are the main components, being the protein content higher than in the original raw material due to the use of proteases that solubilize and hydrolyze the original proteins, increasing the protein concentration in the vegetable extracts.
We chose different BS in order to know the influence of chemical composition on biochemical soil
Discussion
Our results suggest that the chemical composition of biostimulants applied to the soil influenced the soil enzymatic activities stimulation differently. These results are in agreement with those obtained by Bastida et al. (2008) and Tejada et al., 2006a, Tejada et al., 2006b, Tejada et al., 2008, Tejada et al., 2009, Tejada et al., 2010 when they applied different sources of organic matter such as manure, cotton compost, plant residues, sewage sludge, vermicomposts, etc., indicating that land
Conclusions
The application of biostimulants had a positive effect on soil biological properties, and also favoured the establishment of vegetation which will protect the soil against erosion and contribute to its restoration. Therefore the addition of this type of organic waste may be considered a good strategy for recovering semiarid areas. Our results indicated that soil enzymatic activities and bacteria and fungal biomass were highest in soil amended with biostimulants with a higher percentage of
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