The response of soil organic matter to manure amendments in a long-term experiment at Ultuna, Sweden

In a long-term field experiment started in 1956 on a clay loam soil at Uppsala, Sweden, changes of organic carbon in the topsoils receiving various organic amendments at the rate of 2000 kg C ha(-1) year(-1) were studied to determine soil organic matter characteristics, variations of delta(13)C in the soil and to estimate a carbon balance. Fallow and mineral fertilizer without N led to a significant decrease of soil organic matter (SOM) in the soil, green manure maintained the SOM content, and animal manure and peat increased the SOM content significantly. The stable portion of the added organic materials after 37 years of continuous input was 12.8, 27.3, and 56.7%, for green manure, animal manure and peat, respectively. This was reflected by half-lives of organic carbon originating from the amendments between 3.0 (green manure) and 14.6 years (peat). The isotopic composition of SOM changed both due to mineralization (continuous fallow) and the addition of amendments isotopically different from soil humus (green manure, animal manure). The isotopic effect was used to calculate the percentage of carbon derived from animal manure present for the year 1993. This value (55.4%) was larger than that derived from the carbon balance, which indicated a priming effect of the animal manure on the initial soil humus. Mineralization of microbially available organic substances led to an increase in the degree of humification on plots not receiving organic amendments. Adding peat and animal manure resulted in a decrease of the humification index due to the continuous input of poorly humified material. The extinction ratio (E-4/E-6) and ratio of fulvic acid to humic acid changed considerably in the peat treated plots. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR)-measurements of the extracts showed that peat characteristics can be detected in peat treated soils. The other amendments did not alter the characteristics of the extractable humic substances.