agriculture Article Effects of Poultry Manure and Biochar on Acrisol Soil Properties and Yield of Common Bean. A Short-Term Field Experiment José Romualdo de Sousa Lima 1, * , Maria da Conceição Cavalcanti de Goes 1 , Claude Hammecker 2 , Antonio Celso Dantas Antonino 3 , Érika Valente de Medeiros 1 , Everardo Valadares de Sá Barretto Sampaio 3 , Maria Camila de Barros Silva Leite 1 , Vanilson Pedro da Silva 1 , Eduardo Soares de Souza 4 and Rodolfo Souza 5   Citation: Lima, J.R.d.S.; Goes, M.d.C.C.d.; Hammecker, C.; Antonino, A.C.D.; Medeiros, É.V.d.; Sampaio, E.V.d.S.B.; Leite, M.C.d.B.S.; Silva, V.P.d.; de Souza, E.S.; Souza, R. Effects of Poultry Manure and Biochar on Acrisol Soil Properties and Yield of Common Bean. A Short-Term Field Experiment. Agriculture 2021, 11, 290. https://doi.org/10.3390/ agriculture11040290 Academic Editors: Zakaria Solaiman, Hossain Md Anawar and Ryusuke Hatano Received: 27 January 2021 Accepted: 22 March 2021 Published: 28 March 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Academic Unit of Garanhuns, Federal University of Agreste of Pernambuco, Garanhuns, PE 55292-270, Brazil; goesmariacc@gmail.com (M.d.C.C.d.G.); erika.valente@ufape.edu.br (É.V.d.M.); camila.barros@ufape.edu.br (M.C.d.B.S.L.); vanilson.silva@ufape.edu.br(V.P.d.S.) 2 Laboratory for the Study of Soil-Agrosystem-Hydrosystem Interactions, French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, 34060 Montpellier, France; claude.hammecker@ird.fr 3 Department of Nuclear Energy, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE 50740-540, Brazil; antonio.antonino@ufpe.br (A.C.D.A.); esampaio@ufpe.br (E.V.d.S.B.S.) 4 Academic Unit of Serra Talhada, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Serra Talhada, PE 56909-535, Brazil; eduardo.ssouza@ufrpe.br 5 Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-3127, USA; rodolfo.souza@tamu.edu * Correspondence: romualdo.lima@ufape.edu.br; Tel.: +55-87-3764-5529 Abstract: Common bean is usually cropped under rainfed conditions and in soils with low pH and water retention, in the sub-humid and semiarid regions of Brazil. To improve soil conditions, smallholder farmers commonly use cattle manure. However, manure is available in limited amounts, insufficient to fertilize all cropping areas. Thus, other amendments, such as poultry manure (PM) and biochar (BC), have been proposed to increase soil water retention and pH. We evaluated the effects of BC (10, 20, and 40 t ha −1 ; BC10, BC20, and BC40, respectively), PM (5 t ha −1 ; PM), the combination of both amendments (BC10 + PM, BC20 + PM, and BC40 + PM) and an absolute control (Control), with no amendment, on soil physical, chemical, and biological properties, and on common bean water use efficiency (WUE) and yield. The treatments had no effects on total organic carbon, cation exchange capacity, microbial biomass carbon, soil physical properties, and evapotranspiration. Treatment combination BC (10 t ha −1 ) + PM (5 t ha −1 ) significantly improved phosphorus concentration, enzymatic activities, WUE, and bean yield in this one-year experiment and it can be a viable management practice for smallholder farmers in the Brazilian sub-humid region. However, further investigations are required to study the long-term field effects of the best performing soil amendments. Keywords: biochar; poultry manure; evapotranspiration; sustainable agriculture; soil health 1. Introduction Population growth is increasing the demand for agricultural products [1,2], which can increase land degradation due to intensive agricultural use, often of marginal areas. Land degradation impacts many soil physical, chemical, and biological properties, including organic carbon [3,4], hydraulic conductivity [5,6], bulk density, runoff and erosion [6,7], nutrient availability, microbial biomass, and enzyme activities [8,9]. Land degradation is a worldwide problem, particularly in sub-humid, semiarid, and arid regions [1,10]. In these regions, water shortage, due to rainfall scarcity and irregular temporal and spatial distribution, exacerbates the difficulty in maintaining and/or increasing agricultural yield. Agriculture 2021, 11, 290. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11040290 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agriculture