Abstract:
Aiming at overcoming the shortcomings of single low-dose or high-dose application of oxalic acid in improving soil phosphorus (P) bioavailability during vegetable growth period, a method involving multiple application of oxalic acid through irrigation at low rates was adopted to safely enhance soil P bioavailability for promoting P input-reduced greenhouse vegetable production. The effects of multiple low-dose application of oxalic acid on activating soil P and promoting celery production were evaluated by indoor shallow soil (1 cm thick) incubation experiment and greenhouse pot soil (17 cm thick) experiments with and without celery using two greenhouse vegetable soils with available P values respectively as 88.6 and 46.1 mg·kg
−1 (named as soil A and soil B, respectively). The soil incubation experiment revealed that multiple application of oxalic acid (0.36 g·kg
−1 applied 5 times at 10-day intervals) steadily increases the content of dissolved inorganic P (DIP) in either soil. The potted soil experiment without plants revealed that the effect of elevating DIP level in soil A by such multiple low-dose application of oxalic acid concentrated in 0 - 10 cm soil layer, especially in 0 - 5 cm soil layer. The results from the potted celery experiment on multiple application of low-rate oxalic acid (0.18 or 0.36 g·kg
−1 for 4 times at 10-day intervals 30 days after celery transplanting) showed that, under the condition of reducing P application by 70% in soil A and 54% in soil B, the application of oxalic acid at either rate increases the DIP content in 0 - 5 cm soil layer of either soil at celery harvest with the increase being significant at either rate in soil A (by 92.0% and 165%) and at the higher-rate in soil B (64.5%), while the lower-rate oxalic application is more effective in promoting celery growth, especially in soil B, significantly increasing celery yield by 20.0% - 33.6% (
P < 0.05). More studies are needed on the performance and risk of multiple low-rate application of oxalic acid in other soil-vegetable systems.