The availability of plant nutrients is governed by interacting chemical, physical, and biological processes within the soil–soil solution–plant continuum. Understanding these processes is essential for assessing soil fertility, optimising fertiliser requirements, and evaluating the environmental risks associated with nutrient losses and contamination. Conventional extraction methods used to estimate plant-available nutrient fractions often provide only a static snapshotof soil nutrient availability and may not deliver the level of accuracy and detail on soil fertility required for effective nutrient managemant in modern intensive agriculture aimed at achieving high crop yields. More accurate assessment of dynamic nutrient availability is equally important in organic farming, where crop nutrition depends strongly on the mobilisation and cycling of soil nutrient reserves.
This session will focus on the processes controlling the release of nutrients from the soil matrix into the soil solution, their sorption and desorption at soil particle surfaces, diffusion and transport, and subsequent uptake by plant roots. Contributions examining the effects of soil texture, pore structure, mineralogical composition, pH, and organic matter content on the mobility and bioavailability of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, sulphur, and micronutrients are particularly encouraged.
The session will also address the release of mineral nutrients during organic matter decomposition. This includes microbial mineralisation, enzyme-mediated decomposition, rhizosphere processes, and the effects of root exudates on the cycling and availability of phosphorus, sulphur, and micronutrients.
We welcome laboratory and field studies, as well as experimental, theoretical, and modelling approaches. Contributions that integrate processes across the soil–soil solution–plant continuum, connect nutrient pools with fluxes and plant uptake, or develop improved approaches for assessing dynamic nutrient availability are especially encouraged.
By bringing together soil and plant scientists, biochemists, microbiologists modellers, this session will advance our understanding of nutrient dynamics within soils and nutrient transfer from soil to plants, thereby enabling more accurate assessments of soil nutrient status, fertiliser requirements, and associated environmental risks.