The Effect of Soil Temperature on the Availability of Indigenous Soil Zinc
1965
A short-term growth chamber experiment was used to study the effect of soil temperature on the availability of indigenous soil zinc. Zinc-deficient weld loam was incubated for periods of 0, 1, 3 and 6 weeks at temperatures of 5, 17, 31 and 43C and treated with 0 and 0.75 ppm Zn as ZnSO₄·7H₂O, immediately before plant-soil contact. Two-week-old corn plants (Zea mays) used as the assay crop were allowed to exploit the previously incubated soil for a 2-week uptake period. During this period both yield and the uptake of Zn was increased from soil previously incubated at 43C for 1 to 3 weeks. The 6-week incubation period tended to reduce available Zn over shorter periods. The addition of Zn fertilizer showed that Zn was a limiting factor in growth at the lower temperatures. Chemical extractions commonly used as soil tests for Zn were not sufficiently sensitive to detect the Zn made available to plants by soil incubation.
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