The Effect of Dose Biochar and Organic Matters on Soil Characteristic and Corn Plants Growth on the Land Degraded by Garment Liquid Waste

Abstract

The addition of biochar for soil enrichment derived from the combustion of agricultural waste with limited oxygen was potentially good for the improvement of soil characteristic, due to the fact that organic C was still intact in that black carbon (biochar) . This research was conducted in the laboratory and in the greenhouse from April through June 2013, using the Split Plot Design with 3 replicates.  The main plot was a kind of organic matter that consisted of chicken manure, rice husks, chicken manure biochar and rice husk biochar. The subplot was the dose of organic matter that consisted of: 0 ton ha^-1 ,  3 tons ha^-1 , 6 tons ha^-1 , 9 tons ha ^-1 , and 12 tons ha^-1 . Pyrolysis combustion  changed  in the characteristics of organic matter, due to the degradation of some organic components in the chicken dung and rice husks, which  also directly caused the degradation of its functional groups. Giving rice husk biochar with the optimum dose of 55.72 g pot^-1 or 9.28 tons ha^-1 in the soil contaminated by garment liquid-waste  improved soil characteristic by the decreasing of the bulk density, availability of heavy metal concentrations (Cu, Pb, Cd and Cr) in the soil and  increasing the total soil porosity,  the CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity),  the availability of P,  the availability of K in the soil.  This accelerates the growth of corn plants that produce the maximum seed weight of  509.325 g pot^-1 or 18.19 tons ha^-1.

Keywords: biochar,soil characteristics, heavy metal, seed weight