 The effects of urine and urine-separated plant nutrient sources on growth and dry matter production of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne. L)Ntobeko Mchunu, Alfred Odindo and Pardon Muchaonyerwa Agricultural Water Management, 2018, vol. 207, issue C, 37-43 Abstract: The use of urine, and urine-derived products can supplement chemical fertilisers. There is little information on the use of urine products in agriculture particularly in South Africa. A laboratory incubation experiment was conducted to determine effects of urine-derived sources on nitrogen (N) release in soil. A 5 × 2 factorial in a completely randomised design was used with two soils, differing in clay and carbon contents, and five nitrogen (N) sources; unamended control, urine, struvite effluent, stuvite + struvite effluent, nitrified urine concentrate. A follow up tunnel pot trial was conducted to determine effects of the urine-derived N sources on dry matter production of perennial ryegrass. The experiment was conducted with the Cartref soil as a 6 × 2 factorial in a completely randomised design, with the same N sources as in the incubation experiment, applied either once-off or split, replicated three times. In the Cartref soil (lower clay and C), ammonium- N declined from 1000 to about 3 mg/kg from day one to day 70, while nitrate- N increased significantly from 0.3 mg/kg to about 400 mg/kg during the same period. Conversely, ammonium-N declined from 100 mg/kg to 8.5 mg/kg in the Inanda soil (higher clay and C), while nitrate- N did not significantly increase. Split application of urine derived N sources resulted in higher cumulative dry matter (873–993 kg/ha) than once-off application (602–727 kg/ha). When split applied only struvite effluent resulted in higher drymatter than struvite effluent + struvite, while once-off application resulted in higher drymatter in the NUC (725 kg/ha) and urine (707 kg/ha) than struvite effluent (602 kg/ha) and struvite effluent + struvite (663 kg/ha). The study indicate that urine derived nitrogen sources, particularly nitrified urine concentrate, can release nitrogen in soil and increase drymatter production of perennial ryegrass, particularly with split application. Keywords: Ammonium-N; Dry matter production; Nitrate-N; Nitrified urine concentrate; Struvite effluent; Urine (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:207:y:2018:i:c:p:37-43 DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2018.05.023 Access Statistics for this article Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier |
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