Journal article

Publication year: 1987

Pages: 404-409

Journal: Soil Science

Volume number: 143

Issue number: 6

ISSN: 0038-075X

eISSN: 1538-9243

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1097/00010694-198706000-00003

Publisher: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins

Abstract: 
We studied the effect of K+ fertilizer application on the transformation of clay minerals in soils from long-term field experiments and exhaustive cropping pot experiments. Soils used were alluvium, gray-brown, and brown soils with illite as the principal clay mineral. X-ray diffraction analysis of soil samples revealed that cropping without K+ fertilizer application had led to a substantial decrease in illite content and to an increase of smectite and interstratified illite/smectite minerals. In the alluvium soil containing carbonate, stabile smectite formed, probably because of the high soil pH, whereas in the other soils with lower pH, degradation of illite resulted in the formation of interstratified illite/smectite minerals. Illite degradation was especially intensive in the < 0.06-.mu.m and < 0.2-.mu.m particle size fraction. We suggest that the removal of K+ by plants resulted in a depletion of interlayer K+ in illite followed by the degradation of the clay mineral. Pot experiments with clover and ryegrass showed that the K+ uptake of the crop from the nonexchangeable fraction (interlayer K+) was quantitatively related to the increase in the dry K+-fixation capacity of the soil.

Harvard Citation style: TRIBUTH, H., VONBOGUSLAWSKI, E., VONLIERES, A., STEFFENS, D. and MENGEL, K. (1987) EFFECT OF POTASSIUM REMOVAL BY CROPS ON TRANSFORMATION OF ILLITIC CLAY-MINERALS, Soil Science, 143(6), pp. 404-409. https://doi.org/10.1097/00010694-198706000-00003

APA Citation style: TRIBUTH, H., VONBOGUSLAWSKI, E., VONLIERES, A., STEFFENS, D., & MENGEL, K. (1987). EFFECT OF POTASSIUM REMOVAL BY CROPS ON TRANSFORMATION OF ILLITIC CLAY-MINERALS. Soil Science. 143(6), 404-409. https://doi.org/10.1097/00010694-198706000-00003