Impact of biochar on the water holding capacity and moisture of basalt and grey soil

Vu Thuy Duong (), Nguyen Minh Khanh, Nguyen Thi Hanh Nguyen, Nguyen Ngoc Phi, Nguyen Tan Duc and Duong Hoa Xo
Additional contact information
Vu Thuy Duong: Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Nguyen Minh Khanh: Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Nguyen Thi Hanh Nguyen: Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Nguyen Ngoc Phi: Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Nguyen Tan Duc: Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Duong Hoa Xo: Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE - ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, 2017, vol. 7, issue 1, 36-43

Abstract: Climate change has been threatening the sustainable development of the agricultural sector around the globe. It is a main reason of prolonged drought which gives negative effects on productivity and quality of agricultural products. For solving these emerging challenges, there have been many solutions on improving soil health in order to increase the tolerance of soil and plant to adverse weather conditions. Recent researches on biochar show that this is a good soil amendment because of its water holding capacity, nutrient retention, increased porosity and enhanced soil microbial activity. This study investigated the effect of biochar from rice husk and coffee husk produced by gasifier on the ability to retain water and moisture in basalt and grey soil, which collected from farming areas in Vietnam. The result illustrates that water holding capacity and soil moisture depend significantly on each type of biochar and applied dosage as well as characteristic of soil. Accordingly, when adding 1% biochar by mass to the grey soil (initial moisture content of 13%) helped increase the efficiency of water holding capacity by 26-33% corresponding to coffee husk or rice husk biochar. It is different from basalt soil (initial moisture content of 27%) when adding 1% rice husk biochar will impact on water retention efficiency was 7%, equivalent to 3% biochar from coffee husk. Therefore, biochar can be introduced as a soil conditioner effectively in dry soil or enhance the water retention in fertile soil that eventually contributed to the sustainable agriculture.

Keywords: Biochar; rice husk; water holding capacity; basalt soil; grey soil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journalofscience.ou.edu.vn/index.php/tech-en/article/view/367/296 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bjw:techen:v:7:y:2017:i:1:p:36-43

Access Statistics for this article

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE - ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY is currently edited by Nguyen Thuan

More articles in HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE - ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY from HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vu Tuan Truong ().