Phosphorus and Potassium Uptake in Four Different Soils of Florida.

Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) are important macronutrients for sustainable crop production around the world. However, the availability to plants is influenced by several soil chemical properties. Plant uptake patterns of applied P and K applied on four different soils (acid-sandy, calcareous, muck and mucky sand) in Florida were evaluated with bush beans as a test plant in a greenhouse study, during the summer season of 2015 and 2016. Four combinations of soil applied P and K rates were used as treatments along with a control were laid out in a completely randomized design replicated four times. The highest total dry weight to aerial part (shoots) for bush beans was produced for calcareous soil (8.21 g/plant), followed by mucky sand (6.59 g/plant), acid-sandy (4.39 g/plant) and muck (3.43 g/plant) soils. The bean yields (dry weight) also followed the same trend with calcareous (8.22 g/plant) recording the highest yield, followed by mucky-sand (6.6 g/plant), acid-sandy (4.39 g/plant) and muck (3.44 g/plant) soils. Statistical contrast analysis demonstrates that there is statistically significant difference for treatments between the soils and not within the soils. Therefore, the best correlation for nutrient uptake (soil: aerial parts) was found in acid-sandy (r2=0.8) for K and in calcareous soil (r2=0.6) for P.