Summary
An open incubation technique was used to measure S mineralisation in a range of New Zealand soils. For most of the soils studied, the release of S as sulphate was curvilinear with time, and during a 10-week incubation, the amounts of S mineralised ranged from less than 3 μg S g-1 soil to more than 26 μg S g-1 soil. The best predictor of mineralised S appeared to be the amount of C-bonded S in the soil (explaining 59% of the variation in mineralised S between soils). Examination of the soils after incubation also revealed that the bulk of the mineralised S was derived from the C-bonded S pool. Hydriodic acid-reducible forms of organic S appeared to make little contribution to mineralised S.
Attempts were made to predict total potentially mineralisable S (S o) from incubation data using an exponential equation and a reciprocal-plot technique. However, the dependence of estimated values of S o on the length and temperature of incubation cast doubts on the validity of this approach.
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Ghani, A., McLaren, R.G. & Swift, R.S. Sulphur mineralisation in some New Zealand soils. Biol Fertil Soils 11, 68–74 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00335838
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00335838