Impact of biochar on water permeability in soil

Abstract

Water is the most important substance which occurs in nature. As a soil solution it is a basis of life for plants, both as an indispensable element of plant tissues as well as a carrier of mineral salts collected by plants through root hair. Ability to collect water by plants depends on the power of its binding with soil and thus on the quality of soil and amount of water. The objective of the article is to determine the water permeability in the superficial layer of soil in relation to the applied biochar dose. The research was provided in 2018 and 2019 year at agricultural field located in Krakow, Poland. The soil used for test was typical brown clay soil. The changes of soil granulometry were made with sunflower husk biochar. The biochar permeability was 3.2·10-5 m·s-1. The lowest value of water permeability 3.3·10-7 m·s-1 was observed for soil where 60 Mg?ha-1 of biochar was applied. Water permeability is strictly connected with general porosity and is often assumed as such in many papers. It was reported that the water permeability for control soil where no addition of biochar was used indicates up to two times lower permeability in comparison to the soil where biochar was added which indicates that biochar influences the amount of water available for plants which the investigated soils were able to store.