Publications by authors named "Ambreen Bhatti"

Earlier studies by the authors on English soils under grassland strongly supported their hypothesis that soil/plant systems have naturally evolved to conserve nitrogen (N) by having a close match between the dynamics of mineral-N production in soils and the dynamics of plant N requirements. Thus, maximum mineral-N production in soils occurred in spring when plant N requirements were greatest and were very low in mid to late summer. Low temperature and a high C:N ratio of senescing material helped to conserve N in winter, but mobile N was associated with pollution inputs.

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Water- and KCl-extractable ammonium-N and nitrate-N concentrations have been monitored at approximately monthly intervals over a year in soils from 0-10 and 10-20 cm depths under permanent grass at a sports field in York, UK. Measurements were made on both fresh, field-moist soils and after the same soils had been incubated for 7 days at ambient outdoor temperatures, to assess seasonal changes in the capacity of the soils to produce mineral-N species in the absence of plant uptake and other effects. Water extracts allowed potential mobility of N species to be assessed.

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Summer minima and autumn/winter maxima in nitrate concentrations in rivers are reputedly due to high plant uptake of nitrate from soils in summer. A novel alternative hypothesis is tested here for soils under grass. By summer, residual readily mineralizable plant litter from the previous autumn/winter is negligible and fresh litter input low.

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