The texture of the windblown surfaces of these soils becomes coarser, making them less chemically reactive and less able to retain plant nutrients or trap pollutants.
Phyllosilicate properties contribute greatly to the ability of soils to release and retain plant food, to reserve water from wet to dry seasons, and to accommodate organisms and atmospheric gases.
The substratum soil (sediment) of the reclaimed farmland drained water very quickly and was less effective in retaining plant available water.
Therefore, anaerobic treatment can produce a high amount of renewable energy, and subsequent composting will retain plant nutrients in the substrate for further use as organic fertilizer.
In fact, vermicomposts are finely divided peat-like materials with high porosity, aeration, drainage, water holding capacity and large surface area, providing strong capacity to hold and retain plant available nutrients such as nitrates, exchangeable phosphorus, soluble potassium, calcium, magnesium etc. (Edwards and Burrows 1988; Orozco et al. 1996; Chaudhuri et al. 2000).
Organic matter retains plant nutrients and prevents them leaching to deeper soil layers.
However, the loss can be minimized by retaining plant roots in the soil and leaving crop residues on the surface.
Systems employing green manures, like the O2 system, tend to retain plant available N closer to the soil surface than other systems.
Low in organic matter and poor at retaining plant nutrients which makes fertilization inefficient these soils are quickly depleted by annual cropping.
Some other good ways to increase carbon storage in soils is to reduce tillage, compost, plant perennial crops, and retain plants that reduce erosion of soils.
Over the 88-day study, cumulative nitrogen removal was 1.28 mol m−2, of which 1.09 mol m−2 was retained in plant tissue, with plant uptake ranging from 2.4 to 27.0 µmol N g−1 dry weight day−1.
