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Effects of Drying and Air-dry Storage of Soils on Their Capacity for Denitrification of Nitrate¹

ABSTRACT

The effects of drying and air-dry storage of soils on their capacity for denitrification of nitrate were studied by determining the influence of these pretreatments on the ability of soils to reduce nitrate to gaseous forms of nitrogen (N₂, N₂O, and NO) when incubated anaerobically with nitrate for various times. It was found that drying of soils markedly increases their capacity for denitrification of nitrate under anaerobic conditions and that the effect observed increases as the temperature of drying is increased from 25° to 100°C. Partial drying of soils and storage of air-dried soils also lead to a significant increase in their ability to denitrify nitrate under anaerobic conditions. Determination of the CO₂ produced when fieldmoist, partly dried, air-dried, and air-dried and stored soils were incubated anaerobically with nitrate showed that production of CO₂ was very highly correlated (r > 0.96***) with production of (N₂O + N₂)-N. This suggests that drying and airdry storage of soils increase their capacity to denitrify nitrate under anaerobic conditions by increasing the amount of soil organic matter readily utilized by denitrifying microorganisms.

¹ Journal Paper no. J-9631 of the Iowa Agric. & Home Econ. Exp. Stn., Ames. Project 2096. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant no. ENV77-23835 and by the Department of Energy under contract EY-76-S-02-2530.

² Research Assistant, Professor, and Assistant Professor, respectively, Dep. of Agronomy, Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA 50011.

Received for publication August 25, 1979. Accepted for publication October 2, 1979.