Towards a standardised procedure for determining the potentially mineralisable nitrogen of soil

Abstract

Reliable techniques for predicting N mineralisation dynamics in soil are required for sustainable management of land resources. The concept of potentially mineralisable N (N0) and its determination procedures were re-appraised in this study. Leaching soil before incubation removed considerable amounts of soluble organic N. But the leached soils had higher rates of net N mineralisation than the unleached controls during a subsequent 2-week incubation, suggesting that using the total amount of leached- (organic + inorganic) N for calculating N0 may not be warranted. N0 and the mineralisation rate constant k estimated with the conventional model-fitting technique varied significantly with soil,..