Increased soil drought events threaten the yields of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) and other staples of arable production in central Europe. In this study we evaluated soil moisture and nutrients as impacted by a two and five % (wt) addition of biochar, manure and their blend to a loamy-sand Regosol. Cyclical soil drought was achieved by the controlled reduction of watering by 75% in pot experiments. Ongoing soil moisture and nutrient measurements were taken, and physiological parameters of sugar beet plants were analysed three weeks after the induced drought. At the end of the experiment (16 weeks) plants were harvested and their mass assessed, as well as their nutrient, pigment and sugar contents. In contrast to the addition of manure, soil volumetric water contents were two to three times greater after biochar amendment, compared to the control soil. Porewater analysis revealed that nutrient leaching (e.g., NO3-, K+) from manure addition to soil was reduced when biochar was blended in (by ≤86% compared to manure alone). Crop analysis showed that leaf gas exchanges were moderated during drought following soil amendment, and leaf and tuber yields were increased furthest when combined biochar-manure blends were applied (> 2-times compared to the control). Perhaps most importantly, the advantageous soil conditions induced by the combined biochar and manure addition also resulted in significantly increased sugar contents in plants (2.4-times) pointing to immediate practical applications of these results in the field.

Department of Agroenvironmental Chemistry and Plant Nutrition Faculty of Agrobiology Food and Natural Resources Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamýcká 129 165 00 Prague Suchdol Czech Republic

Department of Applied Ecology Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamycka 1176 165 21 Prague 6 Suchdol Czech Republic

Department of Applied Ecology Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamycka 1176 165 21 Prague 6 Suchdol Czech Republic; Department of Wood Processing and Biomaterials Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamýcká 1176 Praha 6 Suchdol 16521 Czech Republic

Department of Botany and Plant Physiology Faculty of Agrobiology Food and Natural Resources Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamýcká 129 165 00 Prague 6 Czech Republic

Department of Environmental Geosciences Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamýcká 129 16500 Praha 6 Suchdol Czech Republic

Environmental Process Engineering Laboratory Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic v v i Rozvojová 135 Praha 6 Suchdol 165 02 Czech Republic; Department of Power Engineering University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Technická 5 166 28 Praha 6 Czech Republic

Institute of Experimental Botany CAS CR Rozvojova 263 165 02 Prague 6 Czech Republic

The James Hutton Institute Craigiebuckler Aberdeen AB15 8QH UK

Université Paris Saclay INRAE AgroParisTech UMR EcoSys 78850 Thiverval Grignon France; Department of Environmental Geosciences Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamýcká 129 16500 Praha 6 Suchdol Czech Republic

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