Biochar Optimizes Wheat Quality, Yield, and Nitrogen Acquisition in Low Fertile Calcareous Soil Treated With Organic and Mineral Nitrogen Fertilizers

Mushtaq Ahmad Khan; Abdul Basir; Shah Fahad; Muhammad Adnan; Muhammad Hamzah Saleem; Anas Iqbal; Amanullah; Asma A Al-Huqail; Areej A Alosaimi; Shah Saud; Ke Liu; Matthew Tom Harrison; Taufiq Nawaz

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.879788

Biochar Optimizes Wheat Quality, Yield, and Nitrogen Acquisition in Low Fertile Calcareous Soil Treated With Organic and Mineral Nitrogen Fertilizers

Front Plant Sci. 2022 May 3:13:879788. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.879788. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Mushtaq Ahmad Khan¹, Abdul Basir¹, Shah Fahad^{2

3}, Muhammad Adnan¹, Muhammad Hamzah Saleem⁴, Anas Iqbal⁵, Amanullah⁶, Asma A Al-Huqail⁷, Areej A Alosaimi⁸, Shah Saud⁹, Ke Liu^{10

11}, Matthew Tom Harrison¹¹, Taufiq Nawaz¹²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Agriculture, University of Swabi, Swabi, Pakistan.
² Hainan Key Laboratory for Sustainable Utilization of Tropical Bioresource, College of Tropical Crops, Hainan University, Haikou, China.
³ Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, The University of Haripur, Haripur, Pakistan.
⁴ College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
⁵ College of Life Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
⁶ Department of Agronomy, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan.
⁷ Chair of Climate Change, Environmental Development and Vegetation Cover, Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁸ Department of Biology, College of Science, Imam Abdulrahman Al Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
⁹ College of Life Science, Linyi University, Linyi, China.
¹⁰ Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Grain Industry/Agriculture College, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China.
¹¹ Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Burnie, TAS, Australia.
¹² Department of Food Science and Technology, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Abstract

Crop quality and nutrient uptake are considerably influenced by fertilizers inputs and their application rate. Biochar (BC) improves nitrogen uptake and crop productivity. However, its interaction with synthetic and organic fertilizers in calcareous soil is not fully recognized. Therefore, we inspected the role of biochar (0, 10, 20, and 30 t ha^-1) in improving N uptake and quality of wheat in a calcareous soil under integrated N management (90, 120, and 150 kg N ha^-1) applied each from urea, farmyard manure (FYM) and poultry manure (PM) along with control) in 2 years field experiments. Application of 20 t BC along with 150 kg N ha^-1 as poultry manure considerably improved wheat grain protein content (14.57%), grain (62.9%), straw (28.7%), and biological (38.4%) yield, grain, straw, and total N concentration by 14.6, 19.2, and 15.6% and their uptake by 84.6, 48.8, and 72.1%, respectively, over absolute control when averaged across the years. However, their impact was more pronounced in the 2nd year (2016-2017) after application compared to the 1st year (2015-2016). Therefore, for immediate crop benefits, it is recommended to use 20 t BC ha^-1 once in 50 years for enhancing the nitrogen use efficiency of fertilizers and crop yield.

Keywords: biochar; farm yard manure and poultry manure; nitrogen; urea; wheat.