Paper A GENERAL INFORMATION Find this basic information about the paper and complete this chart.

Title of article: Short-term effects of organic amendments on properties of a Vertisol Author (s): Subhadip Ghosh, Peter Lockwood, Heiko Daniel, Kathleen King, Nilantha Hulugalle, Paul Kristiansen. Journal: http://www.sagepublications.com Date of article: Originally published online 2 February 2010 Volume No: Page Numbers: 10 Author contact information: E-mail: subhadip00@rediffmail.com Where Found Article: The online version of this article can be found at: http://wmr.sagepub.com/content/28/12/1087 B ABSTRACT Read the abstract and answer these general questions. Introduction What is the problem? The problem is soil quality of Vertisols and also could be improved. What are the studys objectives? The studys objectives are cotton gin trash from three sources, cattle manure from two sources, green waste compost, chicken manure from three sources including a commercial product, biosolids and two commercial liquefied vermicomposts.

Method What is the method used? The method used is an incubation experiment that was, therefore, conducted for 4 weeks under controlled temperature conditions Are there any materials used? Yes, if there

(30C) to identify those potential organic amendments that might improve the quality of a Vertisol. Results What is the main finding? The main finding is that the application of cattle manure resulted in a 22% increase in soil-exchangeable K over levels found in control. Discussion What is the main conclusion? Are results connected to the objectives of the study?

The main conclusion is that the cotton gin trash (10 t ha1), cattle manure Yes, They are (10 t ha1), biosolids (10 t ha1) and composted chicken manure (3 t ha1) have value as a source of nutrients to soil and hence showed potential to improve Vertisol properties. Key words Vertisol, manure, compost, biosolids, Haplustert

Background or Introduction

What is the field of this study? The field of the study is the Short-term effects of organic amendments on properties of a Vertisol.

What is the problem of this study? The problem of this study is that the Cultivation of Vertisols has resulted in a 3350% decline in soil organic carbon (C) levels over time, higher pH, less extractable P and reduced structural stability and biological activity.

What has previous research found about the topic? The previous research has found that the effects of organic waste products on the quality of Vertisols used for irrigated cotton production systems is sparse and also around 367 million tonnes of wastes are produced by the agricultural industries each year in Australia (Evans & Maheswaran 2003).

Why is this study important? This study is important because Many landholders have been investigating options of using recycled organic material (e.g. cotton gin trash, animal manures) to improve soil properties with a view to partially or fully replacing inorganic fertilizers on cotton growing areas of northern NSW.

Methods or Methodology What type of study is it? It is an analysis study on the effects of soil quality of the addition of organic amendments. Where was it carried out? The study was carried out in the Department of Agronomy and Soil Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia. When was it done? It was done from 4 weeks of incubation of the soil.

Procedure How was the study conducted? The study was conducted using different soil types, like Typic Haplustert and the Vertosol (Isbell 2002) and measuring the pH and organic C content by gravimetry in the soil. What kind of data was collected? The data collected were of kind Chemical and microbiological properties. What instrument was used to collect data? The instruments used were X-ray diffraction (XRD) and for Particle size by a pipette.
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Results What are the main findings? The main findings are the significant 80% increase in respiration of biosolidsamended soil over control (P < 0.01), The amendments had low C/N ratios (below 14; i.e. of high quality) and might be expected to have high microbial activity. Overall the results were treatment means, and pair-wise comparisons between unamended control and each treated soil for selected microbiological, physical and chemical properties of a Vertisol. How are the findings related to the study objectives? They are insignificant , however, our short-term incubation study, at relatively low levels of application of amendments, did not show many significant effects on either microbial abundance or on the labile, active C fraction which would be responsible for increasing levels of aggregates in the soils under study.

Discussion and Conclusion How do the authors summarize the findings? They do summarize the findings like Addition of agricultural wastes that had variable effects, many beneficial, some detrimental, to the Vertisol, in the shortterm like also the main beneficial effects were the increased nutrient availability for plants. How do the authors interpret the findings? They do interpret the findings according to increased soil short-term nutrient, and also several organic wastes showed the potential to improve Vertisol quality and could be recommended for longer-term trials. Are the findings applicable to other settings? They arent applicable to other settings because the relationship is between organic amendments on properties of a Vertisol and its results are compared
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only to them.