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OXIDATION-REDUCTION ENZYME ASSAYS AS SOIL QUALITY INDICATORS AND RELATIONSHIPS TO CROP PRODUCTIVITY

Ding, Yang
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534703730821057

Abstract Details

2018, Master of Science, Ohio State University, Environmental Science.
There is growing recognition for the need to develop sensitive soil quality indicators that reflect soil management and that assist land managers in promoting long-term sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems. Potential analyses of soil quality indicator may be limited by sensitivity, temporal stability or practicality, enzyme activities have been tested as efficient soil quality indicators because they are simple and could be adopted by commercial soil testing laboratories. In order to be effective, soil quality indicators need to be integrated with other biophysical and socio-economic indicators, and crop yield is one of the most important economic indicators. Various soil quality indicators have been proposed, but few studies have investigated their relationship to crop yield. Landscape position and drainage is a major controller of crop yields, and therefore oxidation-reduction enzymes hold potential to be related to drainage. Paired fields of no-tillage (NT) and conventional tillage (CT) management were sampled with most fields under a corn-soybean rotation. Soil samples were taken in September 2017 from fields in Ohio, Illinois and Iowa. Crop yields were measured in September 2015, 2016 and 2017. Soil drainage class information was determined by using the Web Soil Survey. Rhodanese (RA) and ammonium oxidation enzyme (AO) activities on field-moist or air-dried soil samples were determined in the 0-5 cm depth and 5-15 cm depth for NT and 0-15 cm depth for CT treatment. RA or AO activities were correlated with crop yields was analyzed. Drainage class was not correlated with RA, AO or crop yields, and there was no significant difference in crop yields between NT and CT. AO activities in 0-5 cm depth were significantly higher under NT compared to CT. RA activities in air-dried soil were significantly higher at NT 0-5 cm depth compared to CT. The effect of air-drying was investigated as pre-treatment to enzyme assays because assays that can use air-dried soils are desirable for commercial applications as it stabilizes the sample (compared to field moist soil). It was found that air-dried soil samples provided the same rankings of treatments by RA or AO assays and would facilitate adoption of these assays for practical adoption by soil testing labs. Also air-drying increased the ability of RA assay to detect tillage difference. RA and AO activities were not significantly correlated with crop yield. However, enzyme activity/unit clay did increase the correlation r-values in relation to crop yields and increased the ability of enzyme assays to detect management effects. The lack of drainage class effects on yields or enzyme activities could be due to the study sites having only small changes in elevation between well drained and poorly drained sites. More studies are needed with samples taken from a stronger landscape position gradient, and other methods to test redox potential of soil should be adopted, such as measurement of reduction potential (Eh). In conclusion, enzyme activities were sensitive in detecting tillage effects and the air-drying pretreatment for RA and AO assay is feasible.
Richard Dick (Advisor)
Warren Dick (Committee Member)
Brian Slater (Committee Member)
153 p.
Environmental Science

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Citations

  • Ding, Y. (2018). OXIDATION-REDUCTION ENZYME ASSAYS AS SOIL QUALITY INDICATORS AND RELATIONSHIPS TO CROP PRODUCTIVITY [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534703730821057

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ding, Yang. OXIDATION-REDUCTION ENZYME ASSAYS AS SOIL QUALITY INDICATORS AND RELATIONSHIPS TO CROP PRODUCTIVITY. 2018. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534703730821057.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ding, Yang. "OXIDATION-REDUCTION ENZYME ASSAYS AS SOIL QUALITY INDICATORS AND RELATIONSHIPS TO CROP PRODUCTIVITY." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534703730821057

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2018, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License OXIDATION-REDUCTION ENZYME ASSAYS AS SOIL QUALITY INDICATORS AND RELATIONSHIPS TO CROP PRODUCTIVITY by Yang Ding is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.