Effect of urea feeding on transforming and migrating soil fluorine in a tea garden of hilly region

The hilly region of western Sichuan is famous for producing Mengding-mountain tea in China. However, it is very easy to enrich fluorine (F) in tea, which recently raised people’s concern on fluorosis. In this study, we simulated the local special climate conditions, especially the natural precipitation through column leaching experiment to investigate the effect of fertilization on F desorption from soil. The results suggested different fertilizers could greatly affect desorption of F from soil, but only urea (CO(NH 2 ) 2 ) could significantly and continuously promote the dissolution of F from soil. Furthermore, to reveal the effect of CO(NH 2 ) 2 on migration of F from soil to tea, field plots experiment in a tea garden was carried out. The results showed that CO(NH 2 ) 2 promoted soil acidification continuously, resulting in the increase of dissolved F and Al content in soil, which were migrated to tea in the form of F–Al complex. Therefore, the key to reducing the F content in tea is to alleviate soil acidification and reduce F–Al complex content in soil. Most importantly, with CO(NH 2 ) 2 addition, the contents of F in tea increased significantly from first bud to fifth bud in comparison with those of without CO(NH 2 ) 2 , especially in 2016, indicating the accelerating and prolonging enrichment of F in tea by adding CO(NH 2 ) 2 . This study would have important guidance for controlling F mitigation from soil to tea by managing fertilizers application and anthropogenic activities.