Effect of potassium salts and distillery effluent on carbon mineralization in soil

Distillery effluent, a rich source of potassium, is used for irrigation at many places in the world. A laboratory experiment was conducted to study the influence of potassium salts present in post-methanation distillery effluent (PME) along with two other salts, KCl and K2SO4, on mineralization of carbon in soil. PME oxidized with H2O2, raw PME, KCl and K2SO4 solutions containing K equivalent to 10%, 20%, 40% and 100% of K present in PME were added to the soil separately, maintaining four replications for each treatment and control. Addition of salts up to a certain concentration stimulated C mineralization but a decline was noticed at higher concentrations. All the levels of salts caused higher CO2 evolution than the control suggesting that the presence of K salts enhanced the microbial activity resulting in increased CO2 evolution. The influence of K2SO4 was significantly higher than KCl in stimulating C mineralization in soil. Oxidized effluent had a higher stimulating effect than inorganic salts, showing the influence of other salts accompanying K in the PME. Raw PME, which contained excess organic C, increased CO2 evolution even at the highest salt level (100% PME) signifying the effect of added C on alleviating the salt stress on microbial activity.