Elsevier

Pedosphere

Volume 27, Issue 2, April 2017, Pages 318-327
Pedosphere

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Growth of Wheat Cultivated in Soil Amended with Digestate from Biogas Production

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1002-0160(17)60319-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Digestate, the product obtained after anaerobic digestion of organic waste for biogas production, is rich in plant nutrients and might be used to fertilize crops. Wheat (Triticum spp. L.) was fertilized with digestate, urea, or left unfertilized and cultivated in the greenhouse for 120 d. Emissions of greenhouse gasses (carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O)) were monitored and plant growth characteristics were determined at harvest. The digestate was characterized for heavy metals, pathogens, and C and N mineralization potential in an aerobic incubation experiment. No Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., or viable eggs of helminths were detected in the digested pig slurry, but the number of faecal coliforms was as high as 3.6 × 104 colony-forming units (CFU) g−1 dry digestate. The concentrations of heavy metals did not surpass the upper limits established by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). After 28 d, 17% of the organic C (436 g kg−1 dry digestate) and 8% of the organic N (6.92 g kg−1 dry digestate) were mineralized. Emissions of CO2 and CH4 were not significantly affected by fertilization in the wheat-cultivated soil, but digestate significantly increased the cumulative N2O emission by 5 times compared to the urea-amended soil and 63 times compared to the uncultivated unfertilized soil. It could be concluded that digestate was nutrient rich and low in heavy metals and pathogens, and did not affect emissions of CH4 and CO2 when applied to a soil cultivated with wheat, but increased emission of N2O.

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      Also, the AD of swine slurry kills most of the pathogens (Nicholson et al., 2005), but the number of Fecal coliform bacteria nonetheless remains high. Fortunately, the addition of quicklime (CaO) at the end of the digestion process has been suggested to reduce coliforms (Pampillón-GonzáLez et al., 2017; Posmanik et al., 2017). Therefore, pig digestate has been classified as a type B biosolid, which can be applied safely to the soil, however, attendants should not avoid doing it repeatedly unless they are carefully monitoring the salt content in the soil (Pampillón-GonzáLez et al., 2017).

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      Thus by modifying the microbial decomposer communities and/or the soil OM status, undigested and digested organic amendments impact the VOC emissions from soil. Despite growing literature aiming to evaluate the impact of digestates on C balance (CH4 and CO2 emissions) (e.g. Eickenscheidt et al., 2014; Johansen et al., 2013; Møller et al., 2009; Pampillon-Gonzalez et al., 2017; Pezzolla et al., 2012), there are still large uncertainties on how and to what extent soil microbiota and soil biochemical quality would be influenced in the long-term, and whether soil VOCs emissions would indicate such changes. The aim of the present study was thus to determine i) if anaerobic microbial digestion affects the biochemical composition of the organic substrate and ii) to what extent soil fertilisation with pig slurry digestate impacts soil microbial and biochemical properties which in turn could change the C balance between C stabilisation in soil and C loss through C-gas emissions.

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