A pot experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that application of biochar and compost improve soil fertility and plant growth. Application of compost with fertiliser significantly increased plant growth, soil nutrient status and plant nutrient concentration. Maize shoot biomass was significantly correlated with chlorophyll content, root biomass, plant height, and specific leaf weight. Compost and biochar additions significantly reduced leaching of nutrients, improved the retention of water and nutrients by the soil and thereby uptake by the plants.

This paper examines the impacts of wildfire on soil carbon and water repellency across two different landscapes, located in eastern Australia. Samples were taken over a 36 month period post-wildfire. The burn severity of the wildfire had a significant effect on soil carbon and water repellency at both study sites. The relationship between soil carbon and water repellency was stronger at the site located on a floodplain, as opposed to site located in mountainous terrain.

Digital soil modelling and mapping provides an efficient means of obtaining detailed soil information for many natural resource and environmental applications. This study developed pragmatic quantitative models and maps covering key soil properties of organic carbon, pH, major nutrients, particle sizes and others across eastern Australia. The products can be readily applied using field data alone, are easily interpreted and provide valuable insights into soil formation and distribution across eastern Australia and beyond.

The Coastal Tablelands represent a region of great social and economic importance in Brazil. Despite its importance for the national agroeconomy, Coastal Tableland soils exhibit a natural, singular agricultural limitation, namely dense soil layers referred to locally as cohesive soils. However their formation still remains controversial. This study present evidences that the formation of cohesive horizons may be partially inherited from the original sediment by the predominance of poorly sorted sand particles, which increase the cohesion of these soil horizons.

The subhumid alpine region of Mackenzie Basin, New Zealand, is of national importance for tourism, landscape values, and primary production. In this study, ¹³⁷Cs and a tephra serve as tracers for soil redistribution over historic (54 year) and long (25 ky) timescales. We show that vegetation depletion, invasion of exotic Hieracium sp. and bare ground are not necessarily indicators of present erosion status, and that a long history of erosion has predisposed soil and vegetation degradation within the European era.

Australian soils are often inherently low in phosphorus (P), and P fertilisers are applied to soils to address agronomic targets. Differences in the retention of P by soils, measured by the P buffer index (PBI), influence cost, production and environmental consequences of P fertiliser decisions. We provide a rapid spectroscopic method, using bench-top and handheld mid-infrared instrumentation, for the prediction of PBI.

A batch sorption experiment was conducted using seven clay subsoils with different concentrations of water-extractable organic C (WEOC; 0 - 9.0 g WEOC kg^–1 soil). WEOC sorption was positively correlated with clay content, specific surface area (SSA) and concentration of iron oxides. WEOC sorption was negatively correlated with total organic C content, sodium absorption ratio and cation ratio of soil structural stability. However, the relative importance of these properties for WEOC sorption differed among soils.

SOC and TN concentrations in the surface soil were significantly higher on uncultivated than on cultivated land, but there were no significant differences in those of subsoils between them. SOC and TN inventories exhibited an increasing trend from the upper to toe parts of cultivated toposequences, and were associated with 137Cs inventories. Our results suggest that soil erosion and cropping result in SOC and N losses, and that soil erosion contributes to marked variations in SOC and N distribution.

This study focuses on the distinct features of the nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) cycle in intergrove and grove areas of chenopod pattern-ground soils of the Australian rangelands. In grove soils, denitrification including emission of N₂O dominated the N cycle, whereas in intergrove soils, abiotic N₂O uptake is the sole fate of atmospheric N₂O. There was partitioning of key biogeochemical processes between the intergrove and grove soils, which results in a spatially decoupled soil N and C cycle in arid chenopod, pattern-ground ecosystems.

Calcareous soils were treated with three concentrations of mono-ammonium phosphate (MAP) and phosphoric acid. The results showed that MAP may promote the same amount of cadmium (Cd) in the form bound to iron and manganese oxides to exchangeable Cd as phosphoric acid at the same rate of addition, but the soil pH clearly differed, implying that an increase in water-soluble P with addition of acidifying agent may be one major factor affecting the chemical transformation of Cd.