Phosphorus Critical Concentration in Paddy Soils of Guilan Province

Measurement of the critical level of phosphorus due to several economical and biological reasons is of great importance in paddy fields. The present research was done for determining the critical level of phosphorus in the paddy fields cultivated by rice cv. Hashemi using 6 extraction methods including Olsen, Morgan, Soltanpoor, Colwell, Bray and Mehlich 3. In this project, among 100 paddy fields evaluated for their soils, 27 fields were chosen based on the maximum range of variation in their pH, organic matters and extractable phosphorus. In the selected fields we did two fertilizer treatments of 0 and 120 kg of triple super phosphate per hectare, and then the critical level of phosphorus in the extraction having the best correlation with the rice yield was measured via the visual method of Cate- Nelson. By this approach the critical level of phosphorus for Colwell, Olsen, Soltanpoor and Morgan extraction methods were 35, 16, 3 and 4.5 mg/kg, respectively. With respect to the presence of a good relationship between Olsen extraction method and relative rice yield, also owing to the cost- effectiveness and time- saving feature of this technique we strongly recommend this approach as a suitable way to extract the absorbable phosphorus, and the use of the phosphate fertilizers is suggested in the paddy fields of Guilan province.