Improvement of Soil Quality Parameters by Municipal Solid Waste Compost Application in Clay-Loam Soil

Turkish Journal of Agriculture - Food Science and Technology, 8(3): 603-609, 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.24925/turjaf.v8i3.603-609.3062 Turkish Journal of Agriculture - Food Science and Technology Available online, ISSN: 2148-127X | www.agrifoodscience.com | Turkish Science and Technology Improvement of Soil Quality Parameters by Municipal Solid Waste Compost Application in Clay-Loam Soil Orhan Yüksel1,a,*, Yasemin Kavdır2,b Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Agricultural Faculty, Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University, 59030 Tekirdağ, Turkey Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Agricultural Faculty, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, 17020 Çanakkale, Turkey * Corresponding author 1 2 ARTICLE INFO Research Article Received : 05/11/2019 Accepted : 01/01/2020 Keywords: Waste compost Soil Field experiment Soil characteristics Organic matter a ABSTRACT Organic matter (OM) content of the soils should be improved for sustainable productions. Municipal solid waste compost (MSWC) is an organic material used in several countries to improve soil OM contents. This study was conducted to determine potential use of MSWC as soil amendment. Field experiments were conducted for two years with single MSWC treatments. Experiments were conducted on 18 plots in randomized complete blocks design with 3 replications. Six different MSWC doses (0, 40, 80, 120, 160 and 200 t ha-1) were applied to experimental plots. Compost doses were calculated in dry weight basis, applied to 21 m2 plots and sunflower was sown as the experimental plant of the study. Following the sunflower harvest, disturbed and undisturbed soil samples were taken from the experimental plots and soil samples were subjected to various analyses. Applied MSWC doses significantly increased soil OM contents, electrical conductivity (EC) and cation exchange capacity (CEC), aggregate stability (AS) and saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) and reduced soil bulk density (BD). Effects of MSWC on soil pH were not found to be significant. Effects of MSWC treatments were more remarkable with increasing doses. MSWC treatments increased soil OM contents about 3 folds and increased CEC by about 25%. MSWC treatments significantly increased salt contents of the soils. Such increases were found to be significant at 1% level in the first year and 5% level in the second year. Increasing OM contents also increase soil aggregation, thus reduced bulk density and increased hydraulic conductivity. Correlation analysis revealed significant correlations between OM and AS. Present findings revealed that MSWC positively influenced physical and chemical characteristics of clay-loam soils of arid and arid climates, but salt contents should carefully be monitored in repetitive uses. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0679-8722 b https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2527-7685 This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Introduction Temperature, insufficient precipitation and excessive soil tillage significantly reduce OM contents of the soils of arid and semi-arid regions. Soil OM quantities should be preserved even should be increased for sustainability of soil fertility. Therefore, soils should regularly be supplemented with organic matters. Various organic wastes are composted and applied to soils widely to improve soil OM contents. Composted organic amendments have various positive impacts on soil physical, chemical and biological characteristics (Westerman and Bicudo, 2005; Hernandez et al., 2015; Kavdir et al., 2020). High organic C contents are the greatest attribute of these organic materials (Erhart and Hartl, 2010). MSWC is an organic material able to be used as an organic source of C to improve OM contents of the soils over which intensive agriculture is practiced (Annabi, 2007; Hargreaves et al., 2008). MSWC is quite rich in organic carbon and effects of this material on soil characteristics largely depend on compost composition, application doses and maturity level of the compost (Crecchio et al., 2001; Weber et al., 2014). MSWCs also contain high quantities of nutrients. Therefore, they are most of the time known as organic fertilizers. Despite the high nutrient contents, they primarily improve soil physical characteristics rather than compensating commercial fertilizers (Sanchez et al., 2016). MSWC with high OM content regulates soil structure and increase soil aggregation (Annabi, 2007; Karami et al., 2012), thus increase soil porosity (Hemmat et al., 2010; Eibisch et al., 2015) and reduce BD (Tejada and Gonzalez, 2007; Diacono and Montemurro, 2010). Improved soil structure then positively influences soil Ksat value. Zamani et al. (2016) related the effects of MSWC on soil Ksat to high OM content. Besides high OM contents, MSWCs also Yüksel and Kavdır / Turkish Journal of Agriculture - Food Science and Technology, 8(3): 603-609, 2020 contain high quantities of humic acid. There are significant correlations between AS and humic acid (Piccolo et al., 1992; Tejada and Gonzalez, 2007). The materials with high humic acid contents improve soil structure and AS (Karami et al., 2012). Albiach et al. (2001) investigated various organic materials and reported the greatest increases in soil OM and humic acid contents with MSWC. Effects of composts on soils largely vary with the application doses and frequencies. Increasing positive impacts of composts on soil characteristics were reported with increasing doses (Yuksel et al., 2004; Karami et al., 2012) and frequencies (Diacono and Montemurro, 2010; Erhart and Hartl, 2010). Several other studies also reported the best achievements with the greatest MSWC doses (Bastida et al., 2007; Karami et al., 2012; Yuksel, 2012). High compost doses result in greater increases in soil organic carbon contents, thus more remarkable impacts on soil characteristics (Weber et al., 2014). Hernandez et al. (2015) indicated that soil water holding capacity, porosity, AS and nutrient contents of compost-treated soils were greater than the control treatments even 5 years after the treatments and such impacts were more remarkable at higher doses. Diacono and Montemurro (2010) indicated that long-term high MSWC doses increased soil organic carbon contents up to 90%. Although researchers applied different compost doses, they mostly recommended regular compost application of 6-7 t ha-1year-1 for sustainable OM content in soils (Erhart and Hartl, 2010). MSWCs have various positive impacts also on soil chemical characteristics. Parallel to increasing OM contents, MSWC also increase CEC and nutrient contents of the soils. The pH of low-pH soils increases, thus heavy metal uptake of the plants is restricted. MSWC may have some negative impacts on agricultural fields since these composts have high heavy metal and salt contents (Alvarenga et al., 2015). It was reported in previous studies that MSWC treatments increased soil heavy metal and salt contents, but such increased va (...truncated)