Magnesium-supplying power of some Finnish mineral soils

Authors

• Armi Kaila University of Helsinki, Department of Agricultural Chemistry
• Helinä Kettunen University of Helsinki, Department of Agricultural Chemistry

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23986/afsci.72941

Abstract

Uptake of magnesium from a sand, fine sand, muddy clay, silty clay and heavy clay soil under exhaustive cropping with perennial rye grass was studied in green house. An application of 0.5 g Mg as MgSO4 ∙ 7 H2O per the 5-liter pots increased slightly the total yield of rye grass shoots and markedly the amount of Mg harvested in the shoots from the sand and fine sand soils with an initial content of only 14 and 37 ppm exchangeable Mg, respectively. No respond to the application of Mg was detected in the silty clay and heavy clay soils which contained exchangeable Mg 226 and 910 ppm, respectively. The muddy clay soil contained 137 ppm exchangeable Mg, and the application of Mg markedly increased the amount of Mg harvested in the shoots, but brought about a decrease in the yield of shoots. The amount of Mg harvested in the shoots without the application of Mg was only in the sand and fine sand soils higher than the original content of exchangeable Mg. Yet, in all soils except in the muddy clay, the decrease in the content of exchangeable Mg during the cropping was lower than the amount of Mg harvested. This was taken to indicate that some release of nonexchangeable Mg did occur during this trial. According to a rough estimation this mobilization of Mg varied from 0 to 60 ppm, whereas the corresponding release of nonexchangeable K was 500–1000 ppm, except in the sand soil. The »exhaustion Mg», or the sum of Mg harvested in the shoots of rye grass and the exchangeable Mg in the soil after cropping, was in all soils of the same order as the amount of Mg extracted by 0.05 N or 0.1 N HCI from the original soil samples.