Page 211 - Enzymes in Tropical Soils

Enzymes in Tropical Soils 199

Available Soil Water is the amount of water content in soils lying between the soil
field water capacity (FC) and the soil permanent wilting point (PWP).
Bioaccumulator is a vegetation that can easily grow and absorb heavy metals and
used to extract the heavy metals from contaminated soil, water, and muds.
Examples of this vegetation are spinach and lettuce.

Biological Fertilizer is a fertilizer that may contain enzyme producing
microorganisms/purified enzymes which upon application in the fields may
be activated to produce active enzymes that may participate in the soil
enzymatic decomposition.
Bulk Density of soil is a soil physical property calculated by the following equation:
; where  b is soil bulk density, M s is soil mass, V t is soil total volume.

Capacity Factor is all the nutrients hold by the soil matrix with relatively low
energies easily released to compensate the decrease in Intensity Factor.

Carbon Cycle or C-Cycle is the chain of all the processes of C transformation from
CO 2 in the atmosphere to CH 2 O (sugars, proteins, and fats) as structural and
functional substances in plant tissues and microorganisms, and then their
ultimate decomposition back to form inorganic C as CO 2 available to plants.
Catalyst is a substance that may accelerate the rate of a reaction to a magnitude of
several orders without itself participate in the reaction. Examples of
catalysts are phospharase and urease.
Chelation is a chemical process by which a cation is hold by multidentate organic
agent forming a soluble complexes.
Complex Ion is an ionic species formed by the association on one elemental species
+
with another elemental species with different charges such as Cu(OH) ,
+ -
Pb(H 2 PO 4 ) , or Al(OH) 4 .
Compost is a more stable organic matter as a result of fresh organic matter
decomposition under conditions: organic matters must be prepared in small
chuncks, microorganisms must be present in the mixture, inorganic N must
be enough to sustain the development of microorganisms, reaction (pH)
must be maintained by lime, the mixture must be moistened during the
decomposition process, and oxygen must be available for oxidation, and CO 2
must be pumped out from the stacks of organic residues. The C/N ratios of
compost are about 12.

Abdul Kadir Salam - 2014