Microbial characteristics response to the soil quality of newly created farmland on the Loess Plateau.

Microbiome plays an important role in evaluating soil quality for sustainable agriculture. However, the suitability of biological indicators in reclaimed farmland is less understood. Using high-throughput sequencing, we evaluated the soil microbial community of the newly created farmland (NF) after reclamation with two local high-yield farmlands (slope farmland (SF), check-dam farmland (CF)) on the Loess Plateau.

Biochar can improve the soil quality of new creation farmland on the Loess Plateau.

The Loess Plateau is the most severely degraded soil area worldwide and represents one of the lowest areas of soil productivity. To solve the conundrum between increasing populations and decreasing agricultural acreage, enhancing the quantity of cultivated land, gully land consolidation projects has been implemented. However, the new creation farmland soil is not enough to satisfy the demand of agricultural production.

[Immobilization impact of different fixatives on heavy metals contaminated soil].

Four kinds of amendments including humus, ammonium sulfate, lime, superphosphate and their complex combination were added to rapid immobilize the heavy metals in contaminated soils. The best material was chosen according to the heavy metals' immobilization efficiency and the Capacity Values of the fixative in stabilizing soil heavy metals. The redistributions of heavy metals were determined by the European Communities Bureau of Referent(BCR) fraction distribution experiment before and after treatment.