Soil acidity is one of the limiting factors for growth and production of most crops. Its harmful effect refers to the availability of essential nutrients to plants and also the decrease of cation exchange capacity (exchangeable bases), especially calcium and magnesium. These effects can be corrected by applying mineral amendments. The present research study is the first stage regarding the use of steel slag as a mineral amendment in agriculture. The paper presents data on the selection of acid soil, physical and chemical characteristics of the soil and the need and opportunity to apply an unconventional amendment. In order to set up experiments to study the changes occurring in an acid soil treated with steel slag, in the preliminary study it has been selected both the soil and amendment (steel slag). The soil selected for the experiment was subjected to the laboratory protocol considering that changes in soil reaction occur due to changes in soil base cation saturation ratio (BCSR %≡V%) and in the content of other chemical indicators. Soil material needed for the experiment has been sampled from a luvosoil, Albota area, Arges county. Luvosoil from Albota belongs to the group class of middle texture, medium clay subclass (LL) according to Soil Taxonomy Roumanian System (SRTS). Soil material has a moderately acidic reaction (pH=5.48) and total exchangeable acidity (SH) has a value of 6.28 me/100g soil. Due to the degree of base cation saturation ratio the soil is in an early stage of debasification. For this type of soil, both the heavy metals content and the total soluble salts content are in normal quantities. Having a very high alkaline reaction and high contents of calcium and magnesium oxides, the steel slag will be used in our experiment as mineral amendment to neutralize the acidity of luvosoil and to improve the mineralization in terms of ensuring environmental protection.

soil, acidity, unconventional amendment

sciences soil

Presentation: poster