Comparing the phosphorus use efficiency of pre-treated (organically) rock phosphate with soluble P fertilizers in maize under calcareous soils

Maria Mussarat; Hazrat Ali; Dost Muhammad; Ishaq Ahmad Mian; Shadman Khan; Muhammad Adnan; Shah Fahad; Fazli Wahid; Khadim Dawar; Shamsher Ali; Afia Zia; Manzoor Ahmad; Sowm Khan; Wajid Ali Shah; Muhammad Romman; Rainaz Parvez; Manzer H Siddiqui; Abid Khan; Depeng Wang; Xue Jiang

doi:10.7717/peerj.11452

Comparing the phosphorus use efficiency of pre-treated (organically) rock phosphate with soluble P fertilizers in maize under calcareous soils

PeerJ. 2021 May 24:9:e11452. doi: 10.7717/peerj.11452. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Maria Mussarat¹, Hazrat Ali¹, Dost Muhammad¹, Ishaq Ahmad Mian¹, Shadman Khan¹, Muhammad Adnan², Shah Fahad^{3

4}, Fazli Wahid², Khadim Dawar¹, Shamsher Ali⁵, Afia Zia⁶, Manzoor Ahmad⁷, Sowm Khan¹, Wajid Ali Shah⁷, Muhammad Romman⁸, Rainaz Parvez⁹, Manzer H Siddiqui¹⁰, Abid Khan¹¹, Depeng Wang¹², Xue Jiang¹³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Soil and Environmental Science, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Peshawar, Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan.
² Department of Agriculture, The University of Swabi, Swabi, Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan.
³ Department of Agronomy, University of Harripur, Harripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁴ Hainan Key Laboratory for Sustainable Utilization of Tropical Bioresource, College of Tropical Crops, Hainan University, Hainan, Haikou, China.
⁵ Department of Soil and Environmental Science (AMK) campus, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Mardan, Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan.
⁶ Department of Agricultural Chemistry, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁷ Department of Agriculture, Bacha Khan University, Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁸ Department of Botany, University of Chitral, Chitral, KP, Pakistan.
⁹ Department of Botany, Government Girls Degree College, Dargai Malakand, KP, Pakistan.
¹⁰ Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
¹¹ Department of Horticulture, The University of Haripur, Harripur, KPK, Pakistan.
¹² College of Life Science, Linyi University, Linyi City, Shandong Province, China.
¹³ College of Life Sciences and Technology, Xinjiang University, Urumqi City, Xinjiang Province, China.

Abstract

In calcareous soils, phosphorus (P) availability to plant is impaired due to the formation of insoluble complexes with calcium and magnesium. Therefore, this study was executed to compare the P use efficiency (PUE) of four different P sources [rock phosphate (RP), acidulated rock phosphate (ARP), single super phosphate (SSP) and di ammonium phosphate (DAP)] alone or pre-treated with organic amendments (farm yard manure (FYM) enriched compost, simple compost and humic acid (HA)) along with control in maize crop under calcareous soils. All treatments irrespective of P sources received 90 kg P₂O₅ ha^-1. Phosphorus application regardless of its sources and combination with organic amendments significantly improved maize growth, yield as well as P uptake and PUE. Rock phosphate when applied alone was recorded inferior but its performance significantly improved with compost or its pre-addition with FYM and HA, that further enhanced upon acidulation. Maize grain yield increased by 21, 22.2, 67.9 and 94% with RP, ARP, ARP enriched compost and ARP+ compost respectively, over control. Similarly, PUE of DAP improved from 31.7 to 43.1 and 39 with sample and enriched compost correspondingly. Post-harvest soil and grain P were at par for SSP, ARP and DAP alone or in conjugation with organic amendments when averaged across the amendments. These results suggested that pretreatment of P sources with organic amendments is an economical and more feasible approach to improve maize yield and PUE. Moreover, on-farm acidulation of RP may give at par results with SSP and DAP with cheaper rate and hence recommended for P management in maize in alkaline calcareous soils.

Keywords: Acidulated rock phosphate; Calcareous soils; Enrich compost; Humic acid; Phosphorus use efficiency.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD0300606). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.