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Cu and Zn in soils treated with sewage sludge: Their ‘extractability’ to reagents compared with their ‘availability’ to plants

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Summary

Dried digested sewage sludge (cake) was mixed, in varied proportions, with three contrasting soils and cropped intermittently to ryegrass or young barley over a period of 710 days. Results are presented for periods 1–4, 13–16 and 22–23 months after the sludge and soil were mixed.

At any given time the quantities of Cu or Zn that wereextractable (by EDTA or acetic acid) from a given soil showed a simple relationship to the ‘total’ quantities of Cu and Zn present. Theavailability of these elements to test crops also showed a simple relationship to their ‘total’ quantities. As a result the quantities available or extractable at any given time appeared to be related to each other also. However, though the extractabilities of Cu and Zn changed with time in some cases, and the availabilities of Cu and Zn changed with time in some cases, the changes were not matched. Increased extractability did not necessarily lead to increased uptake, and in some cases uptake increased even when extractability did not.

It should not be assumed too readily therefore that because, at a given time after a soil is sludged, the quantities of added Cu and Zn that are extractable or available are sometimes correlated, the former actually measures the latter.There is no reason to assume that extractants remove all or only the forms of combination of Cu or Zn that may be taken up by crops.

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Author notes

  1. E. Warr

    Present address: Writtle Agricultural College, CM1 3RR, Chelmsford

  2. R. D. Davis

    Present address: W. R. C. Stevenage Laboratory, Elder Way, SG1 1TH, Stevenage

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Oxford, OX1 3PF, Oxford, UK

    P. H. T. Beckett, E. Warr & R. D. Davis

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  1. P. H. T. Beckett
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  2. E. Warr
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  3. R. D. Davis
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Beckett, P.H.T., Warr, E. & Davis, R.D. Cu and Zn in soils treated with sewage sludge: Their ‘extractability’ to reagents compared with their ‘availability’ to plants. Plant Soil 70, 3–14 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02374745

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02374745

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