Effects of soil amendments on soil acidity and crop yields in acidic soils: A world-wide meta-analysis.

Soil amendments, including lime, biochar, industrial by-products, manure, and straw are used to alleviate soil acidification and improve crop productivity. Quantitative insight in the effect of these amendments on soil pH is limited, hampering their appropriate use. Until now, there is no comprehensive evaluation of the effects of soil amendments on soil acidity and yield, accounting for differences in soil properties. We synthesized 832 observations from 142 papers to explore the impact of these amendments on crop yield, soil pH and soil properties, focusing on acidic soils with a pH value below 6.5. Application of lime, biochar, by-products, manure, straw and combinations of them significantly increased soil pH by 15%, 12%, 15%, 13%, 5% and 17%, and increased crop yield by 29%, 57%, 50%, 55%, 9%, and 52%, respectively. The increase of soil pH was positively correlated with the increase in crop yield, but the relationship varied among crop types. The most substantial increases in soil pH and yield in response to soil amendments were found under long-term applications (>6 year) in strongly acidic (pH < 5.0) sandy soils with a low cation exchange capacity (CEC, <100 mmol

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Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.