Abstract:

Soil acidification remediation is an important issue of eliminating soil barriers, improving farmland fertility, and promoting crop growth. A field experimental was performed to compare the effects and mechanisms of six soil conditioners in eliminating soil acidity and aluminum toxicity barriers, increasing the content of exchangeable base cations and available phosphorus in soil, and promoting the yield and quality of potato. The results showed that the application of six soil conditioners significantly increased soil pH value and reduced exchangeable acid content, and then effectively alleviated the harm of soil acidification. Soil conditioners effectively reduced aluminum toxicity by reducing the content of exchangeable aluminum and promoting the hydrolysis of Al³⁺ into hydroxyl aluminum. Soil conditioners increased the content of soil exchangeable K⁺ and Ca²⁺ ions, and enhanced the availability of soil phosphorus. Soil conditioners significantly increased the yield and total starch, crude protein, and reducible sugar content of potato. Different soil conditioners could increase potato yield by 12.9% to 30.4%. Field comparative experiments showed that soil conditioners could inhibit soil acidification, eliminate aluminum toxicity, increase contents of exchangeable base cations and available phosphorus in soils. The lime, silicon calcium potassium magnesium fertilizer, and soil conditioner potassium mainly composed of potassium feldspar, dolomite, limestone, have better effects in remediating acidified soils. The remediation mechanism is related to their strong alkaline characteristics and abundance mineral elements such as calcium and magnesium of soil conditioners. The lime, lime nitrogen, and humic acid conditioners had more effective in improving the content of total starch, crude protein, and reducible sugar of potato.

Key words: soil conditioner, soil acidification, aluminum toxicity, exchangeable case cations, available phosphorus