Plant availability of phosphorus in dead herbage ingested by surface-casting earthworms |
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| Authors: | GP Mansell JK Syers PEH Gregg |
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| Institution: | Department of Soil Science, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand |
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| Abstract: | A combined field and glasshouse technique was developed to evaluate the plant-availability of phosphorus from two sources. The first source was ryegrass which had been ingested by earthworms and excreted in surface casts, and the second was untreated ryegrass. Surface casts labelled with 32P were obtained in the field from earthworms fed with 32P-labelled ryegrass. In a glasshouse study, labelled casts or labelled herbage were placed on the surface of soil in which ryegrass was growing. Ryegrass recovered proportionately more 32P from cast material than from dead herbage. The results suggest that earthworms increase the short-term plant availability of P derived from plant litter by two to three fold. The effect of surface-casting earthworms on the rate of cycling of P in soils of different P status is discussed. |
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