A review on nitrogen mineralization of organic manure and affecting factors

This article reviewed the research progress in mineralization of organic N in manure and impacting factors. There were two methods for study mineralization of manure N, incubation in lab and in situ culture in the field. Non-leaching aerobic incubation and original soil column incubation methods did not destroyed soil texture, but might underestimated N mineralization potential. Leaching aerobic incubation method simulating plan uptake to periodically remove the mineralized N was suitable for rapid test but might overestimate the organic N mineralization potential. In situ culture in the field includes polyethylene bag incubation, top-open buried pipes and ion exchange resin methods. Polyethylene bag incubation method has been popular but has disadvantages such as waterproof, destroying soil texture and nitrate leaching loss. Top-open buried pipes method was permeable and protected soil texture from destroyed, but nitrate leaching loss was unavoidable. Ion exchange resin method incubating without destroying soil texture, although time and labor consuming, was sensitive to soil temperature, moisture, aeration and eliminated the impact of nitrate accumulation. Factors affecting manure N mineralization include manure characteristics, temperature, moisture, soil texture and fertilizer application. Studies mainly focused on the effect of different animal manures, compost maturity, C/N ratio and organic compounds on N mineralization. It is reasonable to use accumulative temperature to express the relationship between temperature and N mineralization. Studies on moisture mainly in the effect of alternation of wetting and drying conditions, soil texture mainly in relationship between clay content and N mineralization, and fertilization mainly on clay mineral fixed N as affect by N or K fertilizer additions. In summary, the studies in the future will focus on relationship between organic N mineralization and organic N components, plant availability of mineralized N, manure substitution equivalence and rate for fertilizer N and how the incubation results in lab will be applied in the field.