Effect of a compost and its water-soluble fractions on key enzymes of nitrogen metabolism in maize seedlings.

The growing concern on long-term productivity of agroecosystems has emphasized the need to develop management strategies to maintain and protect soil resources, particularly soil organic matter (SOM). Among these, the composting process allows both recycling of the increasing amount of organic waste materials and restoration of the content of organic matter in soil. A sequential chemical fractionation into structurally unbound (SU), weakly bound (WB) and strongly bound (SB) compounds was applied to a bulk compost, and its soluble fractions were extracted in water, either after oxidation of compost suspension with an oxygen flux (TEA), or without oxidation but separated into hydrophilic (HiDOM) and hydrophobic (HoDOM) components.