Soil organic phosphorus transformations during 2000 years of paddy-rice and non-paddy management in the Yangtze River Delta, China
The contents and properties of soil organic phosphorus (Po) largely drive ecosystem productivity with increasing development of natural soil. We hypothesized that soil Po would initially increase with paddy management and then would persist under steady-state conditions. We analyzed soils from a 2000-year chronosequence of a rice-wheat rotation and an adjacent non-paddy 700-year chronosequence in Bay of Hangzhou (China) for their Po composition using solution 31P-NMR after NaOH-EDTA extraction. Land reclamation promoted Po accumulation in both paddy and non-paddy topsoils (depths ≤ 18 cm) until steady-state equilibria were reached within 200 years of land use.