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TECHNICAL REPORTS

Wetlands and Aquatic Processes

Spatial Variation of Soil Phosphorus within a Drainage Ditch Network

^a Dep. of Environmental Science and Technology, Univ. of Maryland, 1109 H.J. Patterson Hall, College Park, MD 20742
^b USDA-ARS, Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit, University Park, PA 16802
^c Dep. of Agriculture, Univ. of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, MD, 21853

^* Corresponding author (bneed{at}umd.edu)

Received for publication March 7, 2006. Agricultural drainage ditches serve as P transport pathways from fields to surface waters. Little is known about the spatial variation of P at the soil-water interface within ditch networks. We quantified the spatial variation of surficial (0–5 cm) soil P within vegetated agricultural ditches on a farm in Princess Anne, MD with an approximately 30-yr history of poultry litter application. Ditch soils from 10 ditches were sampled at 10-m intervals and analyzed for acid ammonium oxalate-extractable P, Fe, Al (P_ox, Fe_ox, Al_ox), and pH. These variables were spatially autocorrelated. Oxalate-P (min = 135 mg kg^–1, max = 6919 mg kg^–1, mean = 700 mg kg^–1) exhibited a high standard deviation across the study area (overall 580 mg kg^–1) and within individual ditches (maximum 1383 mg kg^–1). Several ditches contained distinct areas of high P_ox, which were associated with either point- or nonpoint-P sources. Phosphorus was correlated with Al_ox or Fe_ox within specific ditches. Across all ditches, Al_ox (r = 0.80; p < 0.001) was better correlated with P_ox than was Fe_ox (r = 0.44; p < 0.001). The high level of spatial variation of soil P observed in this ditch network suggests that spatially distributed sampling may be necessary to target best management practices and to model P transport and fate in ditch networks.

Abbreviations: Al_ox, acid ammonium oxalate-extractable Al • DPS, percent degree of P saturation • Fe_ox, acid ammonium oxalate-extractable Fe • P_ox, acid ammonium oxalate-extractable P • UMES, University of Maryland Eastern Shore

This article has been cited by other articles:

				R. E. Vaughan, B. A. Needelman, P. J.A. Kleinman, and A. L. Allen Vertical Distribution of Phosphorus in Agricultural Drainage Ditch Soils J. Environ. Qual., October 24, 2007; 36(6): 1895 - 1903. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]