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Agronomy
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Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation
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Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 16273

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Jiuquan Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao 266101, China
Interests: plant nutrition; soil fertility; tobacco culture; biochar; smart agriculture; crop production model
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Food shortage is still a severe problem, with as many as 720 to 811 million people facing hunger globally in 2020 according to FAO. The provision of sufficient food, good farming and fertile land are fundamental. However, land degradation is ubiquitous, including soil erosion, sedimentation, desertification, compaction, and shallowing of the tillage layer; pollution from heavy metals and organic matter, acidification, nutrient imbalance, excessive fertilization, and salinization; decline in biodiversity, biological function decay, and disease bioaccumulation; over-cropping and mismanagement of farming. It is imperative to re-cultivate these lands and improve farming to increase agricultural productivity.

Recently, researchers reported that biochar can bring many benefits into agricultural soils. Owing to their porous and carbonaceous structure, with huge surface areas, and high pH and cation exchange capacity, biochar application has been shown to decrease soil bulk density, increase soil aggregate structure, increase soil pH in acidic soils, increase soil nutrient efficiency, improve soil microbial diversity, and reduce the bioavailability of heavy metals, and thus to increase crop yield and improve crop quality. Therefore, there is a high potential to use biochar as a soil amendment for sustainable farming and recultivation. However, data in the literature come largely from pot, incubation, and simulated studies, while related field experiments are insufficient. Before biochar is extensively applied to agricultural lands, it is better to verify those data by more field experiments, especially long-term field experiments, and to fully understand the mechanisms of biochar reactions.

This Special Issue aims to further address these issues, and attempts to provide a comprehensive perspective. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the effects of biochar on soil degradation control, land recultivation, and farming. Theoretical mechanisms and field data, particularly those data from long-term field experiments, are preferred. All submitted manuscripts will go through a rigorous peer-review process prior to publication.

Dr. Jiuquan Zhang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • biochar
  • land
  • soil remediation
  • recultivation
  • sustainable agriculture

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

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4 pages, 188 KiB  
Editorial
Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation
by Jiuquan Zhang and Caibin Li
Agronomy 2023, 13(9), 2421; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13092421 - 20 Sep 2023
Viewed by 2279
Abstract
Food shortage is a severe problem, with an estimated 720 to 811 million people globally facing hunger in 2020, as reported by the FAO [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation)

Research

Jump to: Editorial, Review

17 pages, 4885 KiB  
Article
Effects of Orange Peel Biochar and Cipangopaludina chinensis Shell Powder on Soil Organic Carbon Transformation in Citrus Orchards
by Lening Hu, Rui Qin, Liming Zhou, Hua Deng, Ke Li and Xunyang He
Agronomy 2023, 13(7), 1801; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13071801 - 6 Jul 2023
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2890
Abstract
In view of the continuous decline in organic carbon content in citrus orchard soil, to explore the effects of biochar and farmland waste on the transformation of organic carbon in citrus orchard soil. In this study, the soil of a citrus orchard in [...] Read more.
In view of the continuous decline in organic carbon content in citrus orchard soil, to explore the effects of biochar and farmland waste on the transformation of organic carbon in citrus orchard soil. In this study, the soil of a citrus orchard in Yangshuo County, Guilin, Guangxi, China, was collected. The citrus peel and the Cipangopaludina chinensis shell were used as raw materials, the citrus peel was used to prepare biochar, and the Cipangopaludina chinensis shell was powdered. The materials were added to the soil in different proportions. A 30-day indoor incubation soil was conducted to investigate the effects of adding different proportions of citrus peel biochar and Cipangopaludina chinensis shell powder on the transformation of organic carbon in citrus orchard soil. Compared with the control group, the addition of 4% orange peel biochar, 2% orange peel biochar + 2% Cipangopaludina chinensis shell powder, 2.6% orange peel residue biochar + 1.3% Cipangopaludina chinensis shell powder, and 3% orange peel biochar + 1% Cipangopaludina chinensis shell powder increased soil organic carbon by 22.49%, 20.06%, 19.81%, and 21.35%, respectively. Compared with the control, 2.6% orange peel biochar + 1.3% Cipangopaludina chinensis shell powder had the best effect on the improvement of soil organic carbon components, and microbial biomass carbon (MBC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and readily oxidized organic carbon (ROC) increased by 19.81%, 64.88%, 67.81%, and 19.44%, respectively. Different proportions of orange peel residue biochar and Cipangopaludina chinensis shell powder were applied to the soil of the citrus orchard to effectively increase the soil organic carbon component content and enzyme activities. This study provides a theoretical basis for the carbon sequestration mechanism of citrus orchard soil using different proportions of orange peel residue biochar and Cipangopaludina chinensis shell powder. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation)
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14 pages, 5174 KiB  
Article
Biochar Addition with Water and Fertilization Reduction Increases Soil Aggregate Stability of 0–60 cm Soil Layer on Greenhouse Eggplant in Mollisols
by Sisi Xu, Meng Zhou, Yimin Chen, Yueyu Sui and Xiaoguang Jiao
Agronomy 2023, 13(6), 1532; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13061532 - 31 May 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1796
Abstract
Biochar application affects the soil organic carbon (SOC) content and distribution, which is relevant to facility agriculture and soil aggregates. However, how the fertilization management of facility agriculture affects the SOC content and aggregate stability at different soil depths in Mollisols is unclear. [...] Read more.
Biochar application affects the soil organic carbon (SOC) content and distribution, which is relevant to facility agriculture and soil aggregates. However, how the fertilization management of facility agriculture affects the SOC content and aggregate stability at different soil depths in Mollisols is unclear. Intended to provide a basis for developing a reasonable fertilizer amount when adding biochar, the facility vegetable eggplant in Northeast China was used to explore the effects of biochar addition on the distribution and SOC content of whole soils and the organic carbon (OC) content of aggregates of each size in the profile (0–100 cm) of Mollisols. Three treatments were set up: WF (conventional application amounts of water and fertilizer), WFB (conventional application amounts of water and fertilizer and added biochar), and 80%W80%FB (20% water reduction and 20% fertilizer reduction and added biochar). The results demonstrated that the 80%W80%FB treatment significantly increased the SOC content by 56.1% and 34.0% in whole soils at a 0–20 cm soil depth compared to WF and WFB treatments, respectively. Simultaneously, compared with WF and WFB treatments, the significant increase in the OC content of 1–0.25 mm sized aggregates of 81.4–130.2% and 4.3–10.1% and the enhanced proportion of >2 mm sized aggregates of 0.22–16.15- and 0.33–0.83-fold both improved aggregate stability in the 0–20 cm soil layer under the 80%W80%FB treatment, which was proven to result in 32.6% and 30.6% increments in the weight diameter (MWD) value. Therefore, biochar addition with water and fertilizer reductions increases surface soil aggregate stability for greenhouse eggplants in Mollisols. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation)
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14 pages, 2036 KiB  
Article
Study of the Humification Process and Humic Acid-like Structure Characteristics of Kitchen Waste with the Addition of Biochar
by Long Ming, Sen Dou, Hong Wang and Yan Zhu
Agronomy 2023, 13(2), 465; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13020465 - 4 Feb 2023
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2964
Abstract
The majority of the studies on humification culture presently use livestock and poultry manure as the primary raw material. There is significantly less research on the changes and structural characteristics of humic acid-like compounds (HAL) formed by humification using real food waste as [...] Read more.
The majority of the studies on humification culture presently use livestock and poultry manure as the primary raw material. There is significantly less research on the changes and structural characteristics of humic acid-like compounds (HAL) formed by humification using real food waste as the raw material. This paper aims to study the changes in humic components and the structure of HAL in the humification process through the addition of biochar to pre-meal waste and post-meal swill as the primary raw materials. Kitchen waste + corn straw (KC) and kitchen waste + corn straw + biochar carbon (KCBr) were humified for 24 days, respectively, using the indoor static composting method, where the samples were collected at days 0, 12, and 24 of incubation. The HAL were analyzed using elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, and differential thermal techniques. The results demonstrated that KCBr first entered the high-temperature phase, which lasted for 12 days above 50 °C. The total organic carbon (TOC) demonstrated a decreasing trend in both treatments, while the total nitrogen (TN) demonstrated an upward trend. The HAL and fulvic acid-like (FAL) contents of the two treatments increased and decreased with an increase in the incubation time, respectively. The relative HAL content and humification index (PQ%) of KCBr and KC at the end of humification were 22.76% and 19.69% and 74.30%, and 73.11%, respectively. In terms of the HAL structure, the KCBr treatment demonstrated lowered condensation, reduced oxidation, decreased aliphatic, enhanced aromatization, and increased thermal stability of HAL compared with the KC treatment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation)
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15 pages, 1400 KiB  
Article
Distribution Characteristics of Microbial Residues within Aggregates of Fluvo-Aquic Soil under Biochar Application
by Yuyang Cheng, Shuai Zhang, Dali Song, Hang Wu, Linxuan Wang and Xiubin Wang
Agronomy 2023, 13(2), 392; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13020392 - 28 Jan 2023
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2186
Abstract
The use of biochar as a soil amendment has substantial potential to enhance soil quality and carbon sequestration. However, the responses to the addition of biochar based on soil microbial residues are not well understood, particularly at the aggregate level. Herein, a two-year [...] Read more.
The use of biochar as a soil amendment has substantial potential to enhance soil quality and carbon sequestration. However, the responses to the addition of biochar based on soil microbial residues are not well understood, particularly at the aggregate level. Herein, a two-year field experiment investigated the characteristics of distribution of microbial residues in calcareous fluvo-aquic soil aggregates (SA) in Henan Province, China. Four treatments were established as follows: no fertilizer (CK), chemical fertilizer (NPK), biochar (BC), and biochar combined with chemical fertilizer (NPK + BC). The results showed that the effects of particle size substantially impacted the microbial residues with 2–0.25 mm SA having the largest contents of amino sugars and microbial residual carbon (MRC), followed by >2 mm SA. Compared with the CK, the NPK treatment markedly enhanced the levels of glucosamine (GluN), galactosamine (GalN), muramic acid (MurA), total amino sugar (TAS), and MRC in the 2–0.25 mm SA by 26.69%, 24.0%, 23.62%, 25.11%, and 24.82%, respectively. The NPK + BC treatment significantly increased the contents of GluN, GalN, TAS, and MRC in the bulk soil and 0.25–0.053 mm SA compared with the NPK treatment. Bacterial biomass and the activity of N-acetyl-glucosaminidase in the bulk soil and SA markedly and positively affected the content of carbon in the amino sugars and microbial residues. Overall, the 2–0.25 mm SA were microenvironments with the largest accumulation of soil microbial residues, and the combined application of NPK + BC was more effective at increasing the accumulation of microbial residues in the SA, which provides an ideal fertilization strategy to improve the soil microenvironment and enhance soil quality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation)
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Review

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16 pages, 1570 KiB  
Review
Meta-Analysis for Quantifying Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Emission in Paddy Soils One Year after Biochar Application
by Fei Bu, Qiong Nan, Wushuang Li, Nanthi Bolan, Binoy Sarkar, Jun Meng and Hailong Wang
Agronomy 2022, 12(12), 3065; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12123065 - 3 Dec 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3157
Abstract
The incorporation of biochar into soils has been recognized as a promising method to combat climate change. However, the full carbon reduction potential of biochar in paddy soils is still unclear. To give an overview of the quantified carbon reduction, a meta-analysis model [...] Read more.
The incorporation of biochar into soils has been recognized as a promising method to combat climate change. However, the full carbon reduction potential of biochar in paddy soils is still unclear. To give an overview of the quantified carbon reduction, a meta-analysis model of different carbon emission factors was established, and the life cycle-based carbon reduction of biochar was estimated. After one year of incorporation, biochar significantly increased the total soil carbon (by 27.2%) and rice production (by 11.3%); stimulated methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 13.6% and 1.41%, respectively, but having insignificant differences with no biochar amendment; and reduced nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions by 25.1%. The soil total carbon increase was mainly related to the biochar rate, whereas CH4 emissions were related to the nitrogen fertilizer application rate. Biochar pyrolysis temperature, soil type, and climate were the main factors to influence the rice yield. The total carbon reduction potential of biochar incorporation in Chinese paddy soils in 2020 ranged from 0.0066 to 2.0 Pg C using a biochar incorporation rate from 2 to 40 t ha−1. This study suggests that biochar application has high potential to reduce carbon emissions, thereby contributing to the carbon neutrality goal, but needs field-scale long-term trials to validate the predictions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biochar for Sustainable Farming and Recultivation)
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