The Amounts of Certain Nutrients Leached from Peat by Various Extractants

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Abstract
A comparison is made of the amounts of Na, K, Mg, and Ca extracted from an Eriophorum peat by [image]/20 hydrochloric acid, [image] acetic acid and a barium chloride-triethanolamine mixture. All 3 extractants have been used by different authors to determine the "exchangeable" nutrients in peat. With hydrochloric and acetic acids, the peat was subjected to intermittent leaching until all of the Ca had been removed and with the barium chloride-triethanolamine mixture the solution was changed 3 times. In a 4th method 40 g of wet peat were allowed to come into equilibrium with 250 ml of [image] acetic acid. The total amount of each element in the peat was also determined. The amount of each ion extracted varied considerably with the method used and the amount of potassium extracted by acetic acid was considerably greater when the contact time allowed was 4 days than when it was 18 hours.