EVALUATION OF THE ELECTROULTRAFILTRATION TECHNIQUE (EUF) AS A MEASURE OF THE K SUPPLYING POWER OF QUEBEC SOILS

The electro-ultrafiltration (EUF) method has been used to evaluate the short-term and long-term supplying power of soils for many essential plant nutrients. The objective of this study was to compare the capacity of EUF with other extraction techniques to predict the plant availability of soil K and K fertilizer responsiveness by 10 cuts of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) growing over a 366-day period. Increasingly higher average concentrations of soil K were extracted by EUF at 50 V and 20-degrees-C (29 mg kg-1), EUF at 200 V and 20-degrees-C (48 mg kg-1), 0.002 M SrCl2 (55 mg kg-1), EUF at 200 V and 80-degrees-C (85 mg kg-1), 0.1 M HCl (105 mg kg-1), Mehlich 3 (119 mg kg-1), 1 M NH4OAc (120 mg kg-1) and boiling 1 M HNO3 (601 mg kg-1). The large content of vermiculitic minerals in the silt and clay fractions is responsible for EUF desorbing more K in 55 minutes than NH4OAc in 29 out of 30 soils. The total amount of K desorbed by EUF at 80-degrees-C was as effective as Mehlich 3-extractable K in predicting K uptake for the first three cuts and was best among the extracting procedures after boiling 1 M HNO3 in predicting the long-term K supply, the uptake of K from non-exchangeable sources and the relative yield of alfalfa over 10 cuts. The desorption of soil K with EUF provides a better evaluation of the K-supplying power of Quebec soils than the extractants currently used, especially on a long-term basis.