Effects of soil compaction and water‐filled pore space on soil microbial activity and N losses

Abstract Soil compaction is a significant production problem for agriculture because of its negative impact on plant growth, which in many cases has been attributed to changes in soil N transformations. A laboratory experiment was conducted to study the effect of soil compaction and water‐filled pore space on soil microbial activity and N losses. A hydraulic soil compaction device was used to evenly compress a Norfolk loamy sand (fine‐loamy, siliceous, thermic Typic Kandiudults) soil into 50 mm diameter by 127 mm long cores. A factorial arrangement of three bulk density levels (1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 Mg/m3) and four water‐filled pore space levels (60, 65, 70, 75%) was used. Fertilizer application of 168 kg N/ha was made as 1.0 atom % 15N as NH4NO3. Soil cores were incubated at 25°C for 21 d. Microbial activity decreased with both increasing water‐filled pore space and soil bulk density as measured by CO2‐C entrapment. Nitrogen loss increased with increasing bulk density from 92.8 to 334.4 g N/m3 soil at 60% water‐filled pore space, for 1.4 and 1.8 Mg/m3, respectively. These data indicate that N loss and soil microbial activity depends not only on the pore space occupied by water, but also on structure and size of soil pores which are altered by compaction.