Abstract:

Phosphorus in soil directly determines plant growth and crop yields, but phosphorus existing forms in soil are very complex, and those phosphorus forms that can be absorbed and utilized by plants account for only a small part of total phosphorus. Therefore, it is important to study the existing forms and classification methods of phosphorus in soil to improve the phosphorus use efficiency of crops, explore ways to enhance phosphorus availability, and reduce phosphorus loss. In this paper, the existing forms of phosphorus in soil, influencing factors of soil phosphorus availability and phosphorus classification methods were reviewed. The results show that the forms of phosphorus in soil consist of two major categories: inorganic phosphorus and organophosphorus, phosphorus absorbed by plants is mainly water soluble inorganic phosphorus, and other forms of phosphorus are difficult to be absorbed by plants, causing low utilization efficiency of phosphorus in soil. There are many factors that lead to low phosphorus use efficiency, mainly ions like calcium, iron and aluminum, and organic matter, pH, temperature, moisture etc. To study and improve the mechanism of the influencing factors could effectively enhance phosphorus utilization efficiency. At the same time, with the continuous improvement of phosphorus classification methods by domestic and foreign scholars, the effective forms of phosphorus have been studied more in-depth and accurately. Bowman-Cole organophosphorus classification method and Hedley’s phosphorus classification method are the two most widely used methods at present.

Key words: phosphorus, organophosphorus, inorganic phosphorus, effectiveness, classification method