The initial and residual agronomic effectiveness of some Indian, USA and Australian rock phosphates

Abstract

The initial and residual agronomic effectiveness of six apatite rock phosphates from India, one from the USA (North Carolina) and one from Australia (Queensland) were evaluated in a pot trial with wheat on a lateritic soil. All of the Indian rock phosphates were very poor sources of phosphorus. Values of initial effectiveness relative to monocalcium phosphate ranged from < 0.0001 to 0.02 and from < 0.0001 to 0.008 for measurements based on yield and phosphorus uptake respectively. The residual effectiveness relative to freshly applied monocalcium phosphate was determined by growing a second crop on the fertilized soils. The effectiveness of the Indian rock phosphates remained very low ranging from < 0.0001 to 0.002 and from < 0.0001 to 0.0004 for yield and phosphorus uptake respectively. Queensland and North Carolina rock phosphates were much superior to the Indian sources with initial effectiveness values in terms of yield of 0.08 and 0.37 and residual effectiveness values of 0.02 and 0.15 respectively. For each crop there was a single relationship between yield and phosphorus uptake (i.e. internal efficiency) for all phosphorus sources showing that variations in yield response were due solely to differences in phosphorus availability. Sodium bicarbonate extractable phosphorus values for fertilized soils sampled shortly after fertilization were not predictive of yield unless different calibration curves were used for the different phosphorus fertilizers.