LAUSR

ABSTRACT Predicting nitrogen (N) mineralization has been one of the greatest challenges to improving N management in agriculture. A laboratory incubation experiment was conducted to study the N mineralization of soil amended with rock phosphate (RP)-enriched composts. The RP-enriched rice straw compost amended soil mineralized highest N as compared to compost prepared from mustard stover and tree leaves. The first-order model was found to be the most suitable for N because it provided the best fit to the experimental data and for its simplicity. The model predicted that potentially mineralized N (N0) was varied from 4.0 to 52.1 mg kg−1 and the mineralization rate k varied from 0.015 to 0.066 day−1. The rice straw compost amended soil had higher N0 value than mustard stover and tree leaves compost amended soil. This study demonstrated the importance of application of rock phosphate-enriched composts in improving N supplying capacity of soil.