EVALUATION OF METHODS FOR DETERMINATION OF TOTAL ORGANIC PHOSPHORUS IN CHERNOZEMIC SOILS OF SOUTHERN ALBERTA

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Abstract
Two Orthic Chernozemic profiles of each of four parent materials were selected at undisturbed sites within the Brown, Dark Brown, and Thin Black soil zones of southern Alberta. This constituted 24 profiles representing 12 Chernozemic soil series. Material from the Ah and Bm horizons was subjected to nine procedures for estimating total organic phosphorus.The data of this study generally substantiated the usefulness of a modified Kaila–Virtanen method for these soils. With some soils, such as those from the Brown soil zone and those developed from aeolian parent material, other methods gave similar results. Reproducible results were obtained with only four methods.The efficiency of estimation of some of the methods decreased as organic phosphorus content of the soil increased. This, together with several other observations, suggests that the organic phosphorus of soils cannot be measured quantitatively at present. Several of the comparisons between methods, however, will be useful for further qualitative work.

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