Life Sciences Commons^™

Defining Arealistic Control For The Chloroform Fumigation-Incubation Method Using Microscopiccounting And 14c-Substrates, William R. Horwath, Eldor A. Paul, David Harris, Jeanette M. Norton, Leslie Jagger, Kenneth A. Horton

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Chloroform fumigation-incubation (CFI) has made possible the extensive characterization of soil microbial biomass carbon (C) (MBC). Defining the non-microbial C mineralized in soils following fumigation remains the major limitation of CFI. The mineralization of non-microbial C during CFI was examined by adding ¹⁴C-maize to soil before incubation. The decomposition of the ¹⁴C-maize during a 10-d incubation after fumigation was 22.5% that in non-fumigated control soils. Re-inoculation of the fumigated soil raised ¹⁴C-maize decomposition to 77% that of the unfumigated control. A method was developed which varies the proportion of mineralized C from the unfumigated soil …