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Potential Errors in the First-order Model for Estimating Soil Nitrogen Mineralization Potentials¹

ABSTRACT

Nitrogen mineralization incubations were conducted using an aerobic leaching procedure. Two agricultural soils and one forest soil were incubated under aerobic conditions, including periodic leaching of mineral N using either 100 ml of 0.01M CaCl₂, 30 ml of 0.01M CaCl₂, or 30 ml of 0.05M CaCl₂. Mineral and organic N were determined for each leachate. Significant amounts of organic N were leached with the mineral N. Leaching with 30 ml of 0.05M CaCl₂ removed significantly less mineral N, but the 100 ml 0.01M of CaCl₂ and 30 ml of 0.01M CaCl₂ treatments were not significantly different. Although not statistically significant, 30 ml of 0.01M CaCl₂ consistently leached less organic N than did the other two treatments. Amounts of organic N leached ranged from 13 to 163% of total mineralized N.

The mineralization reactions were assumed to follow first-order kinetics. A comparison was made between root mean square (RMS) deviations of experimental data from a nonlinear least squares (NLLS) equation and the more traditional least squares fit of a straight line to log-transformed data. The NLLS equation gave a more precise fit to the data and hence more accurate estimates of both the N mineralization potential (N₀) and the mineralization rate constant (k) for each soil.

¹ Scientific Paper no. 5584. College of Agriculture Research Center, Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA 99164. Research supported by USFS grant no. 19328.

² Graduate Research Assistants, Professor, and Associate Professor of Soils, respectively.

Received for publication March 31, 1980. Accepted for publication June 1, 1980.

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