| Summary: | Blending fertilizer with biochar followed by densification to make it into a tablet can
enhance the adsorption of fertilizer on the biochar surface and reduce the nutrient loss during
handling. However, the nutrient release and ammonia volatilization from biochar-blended fertilizer
with and without densification are not well understood. The objectives of this study were to
determine the nutrient release and ammonia volatilization from an acid soil applied with biocharblended NPK fertilizer with and without densification. The nutrient release of biochar-blended NPK
was determined using water incubation for 30 days, whereas daily loss of ammonia was measured
using a closed dynamic air flow system for 10 days. The densified biochar-blended NPK caused
stronger physical binding of the nutrients within the tablet in addition to stronger chemical bondings
between the nutrients with the biochar’s functional groups. As a result, nutrient release in the water
incubation from the biochar-blended NPK fertilizer tablet was slower. However, blending the biochar
with the NPK fertilizer increased soil ammonia volatilization relative to the NPK fertilizer alone. This
demonstrates that the biochar-blended fertilizer tablet has the potential to serve as a slow release
fertilizer for crop cultivation.
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