Field Testing of New, More Efficient Liming Method.

László Tolner¹ - Imre Vágó² - Imre Czinkota¹ - Márk Rékási³ - Zoltán Kovács¹

1 Szent István University, Department of Soil Science and Agrochemistry, H-2103 Gödöllő

2 Debrecen University, Department of Agricultural Chemistry and Soil Science, H-4015 Debrecen, Böszörményi út 138.

3 Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1022 Budapest, Herman O. u. 15.

Abstract:

Based on the new soil acidity determination method a new technology has been developed for the amelioration of acid soils. According to this technology the amount of liming material is equal to the amount of H⁺ in the liquid and solid phase and the H⁺ deriving from protolityc reactions. The Hungarian liming recommendation system that is based on the hydrolytic acidity gives twice as high lime doses than the new method. In this work the yield and element composition of plants grown on limed and unlimed soils will be compared. These experiments confirm the results of former experiments that the lime amount calculated from the hydrolytic acidity is excessive. This investigation proved that this lime amount decreases the maize yield and element content compared to the half dose of the calculated lime amount. These experiments showed that the present Hungarian liming recommendation system results lime overdose that is unnecessary and partly harmful.

Keywords: acidic soil, liming, maize, acidity titrated, hydrolytic acidity