The Effects of Biochar and Its Combination with Compost on Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) Growth, Soil Properties, and Soil Microbial Activity and Abundance

Table 1

Biochar and compost characteristics. The complete biochar and compost characterization and related methods are detailed in Amendola et al. [31] and Alfano et al. [30], respectively. All concentrations refer to dry matter and represent the means of three replicates ± standard error.

	Biochar	Compost
pH		7.5 ± 0.1
Alkalinity (% CaCO3)	18.2 ± 0.7	6.5 ± 0.4
EC (dS/m)	7.5 ± 0.4	4.9 ± 0.3
Moisture (g/kg)	62.4 ± 1.3	3.4 ± 0.9
CEC (cmol/kg)	21.3 ± 0.2	21.0 ± 0.2
(g/kg)	12.2 ± 3.0	5.5 ± 0.6
(g/kg)	9.1 ± 0.2	12.0 ± 4.0
(g/kg)	778.1 ± 0.0	337.2 ± 0.3
C/N	125.5	28.1
Cultivable aerobic bacteria ()	Absent	7.6 ± 0.3
Eumycetes (	Absent	4.9 ± 0.1
Actinomycetes ()	Absent	5.18 ± 0.2
Coliform bacteria ()	Absent	Absent
E. coli (log CFU/g)	Absent	Absent
Salmonellae spp. ()	Absent	Absent