Abstract:
Biochar acts as a soil conditioner, improving soil physical properties, nutrient use efficiency and thereby increasing plant growth. An
experiment was conducted at ICAR-National Organic Farming Research Institute during the year 2016−17 in order to study the effect
of different levels of biochar obtained from different biomass on selected soil hydro-physical properties. In this study, a sandy loam
soil was amended with four different types of biochar (maize, Lantana camara, pine needle and black gram) at four different rates (0,
5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 t ha-1). The biochar were characterized for their physico-chemical properties. After biochar application selected soil
hydro-physical properties were analyzed for bulk density, porosity, aggregate stability, mean weight diameter, hydraulic conductivity and
water holding capacity. Maize biochar was showing best result for improving all the selected the soil physical properties compared to
other type. With increasing rate of application of biochar soil physical properties also changed significantly. The results showed that bulk
density decreased from 1.53 to 1.13 g cm-3 while porosity increased from 58.38 to 65.67. Aggregate stability and mean weight diameter
increased from 4.13 and 2.51 to 8.29 and 2.83, respectively. But biochar amendment decreased the soil hydraulic conductivity from 0.41
to 0.16. Besides water holding capacity also increased from 11.37 to 19.8 g cm-3. Finally soil moisture content increased significantly
from 19.1 to 25.7 for all the biochar. These results strongly suggest positive improvement of soil hydro-physical properties following
addition of biochar amendment in sandy loam soil.
