Substrate Quality Effects on Decomposition of Three Livestock Manure Composts with Similar Stability Degree in an Acid Loamy Soil

Decomposition of compost applied to soils is affected basically by its biological stability; but, many other chemical properties of the compost may also influence compost organic-C mineralization. This study was conducted to investigate the principal substrate quality factors of composts that determine C mineralization of compost with similar stability degree (SD). Three composts samples with similar SD but different chemical properties such as pH, C/N, $K_2SO_4$-extractable C, and molar ratio of $NH_4^+$ to $NO_3^-$ were mixed with an acid loamy soil and $CO_2$ emission was monitored during the laboratory incubation for 100 days. Temporal pattern of cumulative compost organic-C mineralization expressed as % of total organic C ($C_{%\;TOC}$) followed double exponential first order kinetics model and the $C_{%\;TOC}$ ranged from 4.8 to 11.8% at the end of incubation. The pattern of C%TOC among the composts was not coincident with the SD pattern (40.1 to 58.6%) of the composts; e.g. compost with the lowest SD resulted in the least $C_{%\;TOC}$ and vice versa. This result indicates that SD of compost can not serve as a concrete predictor of compost mineralization as SD is subject not only to maturity of compost but also to characteristics of co-composting materials such as rice hull (low SD) and sawdust (high SD). Meanwhile, such pattern of $C_{%\;TOC}$ collaborated with pH, C/N, $K_2SO_4$-extractable C, and molar ratio of $NH_4^+$ to $NO_3^-$ of the composts that are regarded as chemical indices of the progress of composting. Therefore, for better prediction of compost mineralization in soils, it is necessary to consider both SD and other chemical indices (pH, C/N, and molar ratio of $NH_4^+$ to $NO_3^-$).