Abstract
The recycling of agricultural wastes in the soil ecological systems has been applied to sustain physical, chemical and biological soil quality. In this study, the effects of hazelnut husk (HH) and tobacco waste (TW) on the properties of clay loam soil (bulk density (BD), total porosity (F), soil moisture constants, aggregate stability (AS) and saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks)) were investigated. After incorporating 5% application rate of HH and TW into clay loam soil, the soil samples were incubated at field capacity moisture level about 5 months under greenhouse conditions. Both HH and TW treatments significantly increased soil organic matter (OM) content, F, AS and Ks of soil while they decreased BD over the control. The HH having the higher C: N ratio than TW had the highest increment in soil OM content. On the other hand, the application of TW having the lowest C: N ratio had the highest increase in EC, AS and Ks in clay loam soil. It was found that hazelnut husk and tobacco waste can be recycled into farmlands as soil conditioner material to improve soil physical properties and to prevent soil physical degradation.
Keywords: Hazelnut husk, tobacco, structure, soil moisture, permeability