Liming impacts barley yield over a wide concentration range of soil exchangeable cations

Liming has widespread and significant impacts on soil processes and crop responses. The aim of this study was to describe the relationships between exchangeable cation concentrations in soil and the relative yield of spring barley. The hypothesis was that yield is restricted by the concentration of a single exchangeable cation in the soil. For simplicity, we focused on spring barley which was grown in nine years of a long-term experiment at two sites (Rothamsted and Woburn). Four liming rates were applied and in each year the relative yield (RY) and the concentrations of exchangeable cations were assessed. Liming had highly significant effects on the concentrations of most exchangeable cations, except for Cu and K. There were significant negative relationships (either linear or exponential) between the exchangeable concentrations of Mn, Cd, Cr, Al, Fe, Cu, Co, Zn and Ni in soil and soil pH. The relationships between RY and the concentrations of selected exchangeable cations (Mn, Ca and Al) were described well using log-logistic relationships. For these cations a significant site effect was probably due to fundamental differences in soil properties. At both sites the concentrations of exchangeable soil Al were excessive (> 7.5 mg kg−1) and were most likely responsible for reduced barley yields (where RY ≤ 0.5) with soil acidification. At Rothamsted barley yield was non-limited (where RY ≥ 1) at soil exchangeable Mn concentrations (up to 417 mg kg−1) greater than previously considered toxic, which requires further evaluation of critical Mn concentrations.