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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Soil Processes
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1458360

Local sediment amendment can potentially increase barley yield and reduce the need for phosphorus fertilizer on acidic soils in Kenya

Provisionally accepted
Eric Scherwietes Eric Scherwietes 1*Mathias Stein Mathias Stein 1Johan Six Johan Six 2Titus K. Bawen Titus K. Bawen 3Joerg Schaller Joerg Schaller 1
  • 1 Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Müncheberg, Germany
  • 2 Department of Environmental Systems Sciences, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
  • 3 School of Agriculture and Biotechnology, University of Eldoret, Eldoret, Uasin Gishu, Kenya

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Soil acidification and low nutrient availability are two major challenges facing agriculture in most regions of East Africa, resulting in aluminum toxicity and poor crop yields. The amendment of local sediments to cropland can potentially alleviate these challenges, but responses are variable. In this study, we investigated the potential of two different local sediments influenced by volcanic deposits to increase soil pH, Si and P availability and reduce Al toxicity, thereby improve barley yield. Hence, a field experiment was established in Eldoret, Western Kenya, using 1 % and 3 % addition by weight of two sediments in barley cultivated plots. The Baringo 3 % amendment significantly increased soil pH (from 4.7 to 7.0), the available P content (from 0.01 mg g -1 to 0.02 mg g -1 ) and decreased the Al availability (from 3.03 mg g -1 to 2.17 mg g -1 ). This resulted in a barley yield of 4.7 t/ha (+1061 %). The Nakuru 3 % and Baringo 1 % amendments increased yield to 2-3 t/ha, while the Nakuru 1 % did not significantly increase yield. These results highlight that, from a biophysical perspective, there are natural and local opportunities to reduce soil acidification and to partly replace mineral fertilizer, but its magnitude depends on the sediment and the amendment rate.

    Keywords: aluminum toxicity, Crop Production, Phosphorus fertilizer, plant performance, Silicon availability, yield

    Received: 02 Jul 2024; Accepted: 17 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Scherwietes, Stein, Six, Bawen and Schaller. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Eric Scherwietes, Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Müncheberg, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.