ABILITY OF UREA IMPREGNATED BIOCHAR FERTILIZERS FOR SECURING THE SLOW RELEASE OF NITROGEN IN SOILS PRELIMINARY STUDY

A. MANIKANDAN¹*, K.S. SUBRAMANIAN^2
1Division of Crop Production, ICAR-Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, 440010, Maharashtra, India
²Department of Nano Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
* Corresponding Author : poonamani223@gmail.com

Received : 27-09-2015     Accepted : 23-10-2015     Published : 01-12-2015
Volume : 7     Issue : 11       Pages : 750 - 756
Int J Agr Sci 7.11 (2015):750-756

Keywords : Biochar, Nitrogen, Production, Slow Release Fertilizer, Release Pattern
Academic Editor : A. Tekeli, Asad Alkhader, Ruchi Singh, R. Cakir, Vellaichamy Mageshwaran, B. Ljevnaic-masic, I. S. Dalmis, Prof Pellegrino Conte, George Stoimenov, Kostadinka Nedyakkova, M. Dyavolova, K. Slanev, Venera Tsolova, G. Zsivanovits, Vadlya T Tame, K. Kitikidou, Dr Ivan Tsvetkov, S. Stefanou
Conflict of Interest : None declared
Acknowledgements/Funding : The First author is grateful to authorities of UGC, New Delhi for Ph. D. Award and financial Support (2010-12) under the project of Smart Delivery of N in plant system through nano-fertilizers and Special thanks to Mr. S. Vellaikumar, TNAU for CEC analysis using ICP-AES
Author Contribution : None declared

Nitrogen use efficiency of conventional fertilizers hardly exceeds 30-35 % on crop production. An experiment was conducted to develop biochar based slow release nitrogen fertilizer in order to improve the use efficiency. Slow pyrolysed (350°C) biomass material was low in surface area, cation exchange capacity and ion exchange properties. Prosopisjuliflora hard wood based biochar recorded maximum recovery (30%) and carbon (>70%) than other crops. Sorption of four different forms of nitrogen showed higher adsorption characteristics. The amount of desorped NH4+-N increased as pH and initial NH4+concentration increased. Biochar fabricated nitrogen reduced the N-lose of ammonia volatilization. The nitrogen loading efficiency (16.3-18.5 %) was confirmed, using Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Nitrogen release pattern of 18 days study confirmed that the slow release characteristics of biochar based N fertilizer