1. Introduction
The nutrient content of the soil is one of the parameters determining its fertility and quality. It is a parameter influenced by a wide range of natural, anthropogenic and interrelated factors such as soil type [
1], farming method (conventional, organic farming) [
2], crop rotations and fertilization [
3,
4,
5], microbial activity in the soil [
6], or soil organic matter content [
7]. The application of fertilizers represents the main way of supplying nutrients to the soil; for the crops grown, fertilizers thus directly affect soil chemical [
8,
9,
10,
11], physiological [
12,
13] and biological [
14,
15] properties and crop growth.
Fertilizers are divided into three categories, namely mineral and organic fertilizers and organic manures. They differ in origin, composition and nutrient content, speed of nutrient release and availability to farmers. Mineral fertilizers are fast-acting and have a precisely defined composition, which makes it easier to adjust the dose of nutrients delivered. On the other hand, they are costly and, if used unwisely, can pose a significant threat to the environment [
16,
17] or arable products [
18]. In particular, the effect of nitrogen mineral fertilizers on soil pH poses a risk of acidification [
19,
20,
21,
22] and a risk to elements’ availability [
23]. Manure fertilizers have a low nutrient content and must be applied in large doses (the classic dose of cow farmyard manure is 40 t ha
−1 in Czech Republic). The nutrients contained in manure are released gradually, depending on the origin [
24] and C:N ratio. Manures with a low C:N ratio (slurries) release nutrients to a greater extent already in the first year of application; on the other hand, manures with a high C:N ratio (farmyard manure) release nutrients over a longer period in smaller doses [
25]. According to [
26], approximately 11% of the organic N is mineralized during the first year from the application of composted manure and around 20% for non-composted manure. In the case of slurries, approximately 40% of the organic N is mineralized at the same time [
25]. The application of organic manures is usually associated with positive effects on soil properties [
7,
8,
27,
28,
29], but one has to be careful about the doses and dry matter content. In the case of slurry, the dry matter and nutrient content is very important information in order to correctly adjust the applied dose. Ignorance of this information can easily lead to overdosing, which can significantly damage the crops grown or adversely affect the environment via leaching and volatilization of nitrogen and salinization [
30,
31,
32,
33]. In addition to directly supplied nutrients, the unifying factor for the positive effects of organic manures and the nutrient content, pH value, physical and biological properties of soils, is organic matter. Soil organic carbon and nutrient content are usually higher after application of solid organic manures [
34,
35,
36], while the benefit of liquid organic manures, such as slurries, is mainly to increase the nutrient content and the effect on soil organic carbon can be neutral (no changes) [
37] or positive [
38,
39] as the liquid manures contain a lower amount of organic carbon than the solid. As in the case of mineral fertilizers, organic manures can also pose a threat to the environment if not applied judiciously [
40,
41] or because of the presence of pharmaceuticals [
42].
One of the major problems of agriculture in Czech Republic is the disruption between crop and livestock production, reduction of cultivated crops in crop rotations and the fact that most of the arable land is rented [
43]. Disruption of the balance between crop and livestock production is manifested by a lack of organic manure and reduced input of organic carbon into the soil. Together with the significant dependence of crop production on mineral nitrogen (and the low level of phosphate and potassium fertilizers applied), we then experience soil erosion (lack of organic carbon), lower content of macronutrients (doses of P and K mineral fertilizers) and soil acidification (due to nitrogen fertilizers application) [
44,
45]. One way to reduce the negative impact of mineral nitrogen fertilizers on the soil while ensuring good soil nutrient supply and crop yields is to apply mineral and manure fertilizers together. Multiple scientific papers have indicated that joint application of mineral fertilizers and manure has a positive effect on both crop yields and reduction of negative impacts of mineral fertilizers on the soil properties [
46,
47,
48,
49,
50]. Another problem of Czech agriculture is the reduction of crops in crop rotation. Over the years, there has been a change in the proportion of crops grown, mainly in favor of winter rape. Soil-improving crops such as root crops, forage crops and legumes are grown to a lesser extent than in the past [
51]. While root crops (potatoes and sugar beet) are considered as soil-improving plants mainly due to the manure applied to them, legumes have a unique ability to fix airborne nitrogen in the soil, due to their symbiosis with rhizobacteria. Field pea (FP) is the most cultivated legume in Czech Republic (79% of all legumes), yet its representation in the crop rotations of Czech Republic is low (1.2%) (average values from 2015 to 2019 [
52]). From the point of view of human nutrition and soil care, it is a valuable crop. Thanks to their symbiosis with rhizobia bacteria, legumes and FP cover a large part of their nitrogen needs from the symbiosis (depending on the type of legumes, they cover their nitrogen requirement from the soil from approximately 15-30%) and leave nitrogen in the soil for use by subsequent crops [
53,
54]. Although FP can use nitrogen from symbiosis with rhizobia bacteria, fertilizer application significantly affects its yield and quality. Foliar application of phosphorus can significantly improve yield and quality parameters of FP, especially on soils with low phosphorus content [
55], but even on soils rich in P content, it has a positive effect on FP yields [
56]. N fertilization can also increase yield and quality. Early application of N fertilizers is important, as the actual fixation of airborne nitrogen takes place only in the later stages of growth. Depending on soil and climate conditions, optimum N rates can range from 40 to 80 kg ha
−1 N and higher doses can provide lower yields as high N doses can reduce bacteria nodule mass [
57]. However, under different soil and climate conditions the response of FP to N fertilization may be different as yields can increase up to the dose of 135 kg ha
−1 N [
58].
In 1972, long-term experiments were set up at two sites with different soil and climatic conditions to study the effect of the application of organic manure (pig slurries), mineral fertilizers and their combinations on soil chemistry and yields of wheat, barley and peas. The design of this experiment allows us to analyze the long-term effect of different fertilizer combinations on soil properties, which is currently a hot topic due to the dependence of conventional agriculture on mineral nitrogen, the low rates of applied P and K fertilizers and the limited availability of organic manures (slurries). In other words, our experiment can provide answers on how to take better care of the soil with the help of organic manure and how to avoid undesirable effects of mineral nitrogen applied without organic manure (current situation in Czech Republic). Soil types are represented by Cambisol (about 45% of the soil in Czech Republic) and Luvisol (about 13% of the soil in Czech Republic), representing the two most widespread soil types in Czech Republic. The article includes an analysis of the effect of fertilization on pea yields in 2017 and 2020 in Pernolec and the determination of a reasonable dose (using a linear-plateau model) of mineral nitrogen fertilization.
4. Discussion
Long-term and regular application of mineral fertilizers, pig slurry, and their combinations significantly affected soil properties and the effect of fertilizers depends on soil conditions (type) of the site. One of the most important soil properties is the value of the pH. Soil pH is considered to be the dominant factor directly influencing other soil properties such as elements’ availability [
10,
71,
72] and abundance and representation of plant and microbial communities [
73] and their activity [
74]. All macronutrients are best available in neutral to alkaline soils, while in acid soils their availability decreases and the availability of elements such as Fe, Mn, B, Zn and Al increases. Changes in pH thus directly affect the soil’s ability to supply nutrients to plants. In our case, the lowest pH values were recorded for the NPK treatments (applied alone or in combination with PS, but only in the NPK treatments with the highest N doses,
Table 4 and
Table 5). The same result was recorded worldwide [
11,
13,
21,
72,
75] and has been known for a long time [
76]. The primary driver of downward pH changes is mineral nitrogen, in its ammonium form, because the conversion of the ammonium form to nitrate in soils releases hydrogen, directly affecting its concentration in the soil environment. This can be particularly evident in the case of PK treatments. As mentioned above, Czech conventional crop production is primarily dependent on mineral nitrogen. Add to this the fact that most of the cultivated land is rented and its owners have no idea or do not care about acidification. This leaves room for acidification to run freely. An interesting survey was carried out in the USA, which also shows that acidification is taking place there and that about half of the farmers were not even aware of it [
77]. One way to reduce the negative effects of mineral fertilizers on soil pH is to combine mineral fertilizers and organic manures [
78]. Co-application of mineral fertilizers and organic manures is often cited as a sustainable method of fertilization, providing high and stable yields and a healthy state of the soil. The unifying element of this approach is organic matter (together with nutrients) [
3,
5,
7,
8,
13,
29,
79,
80] added to the soil, beneficially affecting soil chemical, physical and microbiological properties. From this point of view, we can support these results only partially as the combined application of PS+NPK provided better pH values than NPK only in Pernolec (
Figure 1a), in contrast to Kostelec (lower and comparable to NPK treatment,
Figure 1b). This may be due to the overall higher soil organic matter content in Pernolec (
Table 1) and the very low organic matter content in the slurry, which seems to be behind the non-significant Cox differences between fertilization treatments in both locations (
Table 4 and
Table 5). The DM of pig slurry usually ranges from 0.7% up to 23% [
61] and quality slurry has a dry matter content between 6% and 8% in Czech Republic. In our case, the dry matter content of the available and applied pig slurry was very low, which is probably the reason why the soil organic matter content is slightly higher in the high slurry fertilizer treatments, but not statistically significantly higher compared to the other fertilization treatments.
From the point of view of nutrients, the highest concentrations of macronutrients were always connected with PS+PK, NPK and PS+NPK treatments (
Figure 5), while nutrient depletion can be found in Control treatment. PS+PK treatment has a close relationship to nutrient content and a moderate relationship to yields (
Figure 5), showing that nitrogen is a limiting element in this treatment and its P and K nutrients are not utilized completely. The combination of mineral fertilizers and organic manures provides high yields while leaving a high micronutrient content in the soil (
Figure 5). From the point of view of agriculture in Czech Republic, we can expect that acidification problems will intensify, as mineral nitrogen is important for all agricultural crops and significantly affects yields, which is the most monitored parameter. The application of mineral fertilizers at higher doses (NPK E3, PS2+NPK, PS3+NPK treatments) significantly reduced the soil reaction values at both sites (Kostelec and Pernolec) compared to the Control; a more significant decrease was recorded on the luvisol soil type (Kostelec). Similar findings (decrease in pH in treatments fertilized with mineral fertilizers only) are supported by some other studies [
81,
82,
83,
84]. The negative effect of acidification on the content of available nutrients (Ca, Mg) in the plough soil horizon is shown in
Table 4 and
Table 5 (in the NPK E3, PS2+NPK, PS3+NPK treatments, low Ca and Mg contents were recorded at both sites). For available nutrients P and K, the acidification effect was predominant in the mineral fertilized treatments (NPK E1-3). This is confirmed by the results of the multicriteria PCA evaluation. These results are in agreement with [
85,
86], which showed a negative effect of acidification on the regime of available nutrients in the soil. Without the addition of other nutrients (PK treatments), there will be a reduction in the content of these nutrients in the soil (as in the case of Control). The combination of mineral fertilizers and organic manures can partially reduce the negative effect of mineral fertilizers on pH (depending on the location and soil and climate conditions), which is good news, but the lack of organic manures due to reduced livestock production in the country plays against the solution to the current problems.
In terms of pea yields, we can clearly see the dependence of yields on nitrogen, with pea yields increasing with increasing nutrient rates, although the differences are not statistically significant between higher doses of fertilizers. The yields are strongly affected by fertilization and by weather conditions. While nutrient utilization is lower in years with poorer weather conditions, nutrient utilization increases in years with normal conditions. This can be seen in the results of the linear-plateau model, which compared nutrient and yield dependence in 2017 and 2020. Based on this model, we can say that under normal weather conditions the optimum nitrogen rate in Pernolec is around 70 kg ha−1. As the variation from normal conditions increases, the nutrient requirement increases as the optimal dose of N raised to 97 kg ha−1 N in 2017. Another important finding is that mineral fertilizers can be completely replaced by PS applied in higher doses (51 t ha−1 in our case). PS has a low C:N ratio, and the mineralization of slurries is rapid, providing a huge amount of available nutrients at the beginning of the season before symbiosis with mycorrhizal bacteria fully develops. Replacing mineral fertilizers with PS can provide comparable yields without a negative effect on soil pH value.