Yield and Quality of Rice under the Effects of Digestate Application

Yi Ran, Xinlu Bai, Yan Long and Ping Ai
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Yi Ran: College of Engineering, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Xinlu Bai: Biogas Institute of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Chengdu 610041, China
Yan Long: Biogas Institute of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Chengdu 610041, China
Ping Ai: College of Engineering, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-10

Abstract: As a major measure to handle livestock manure, digestate is the by-product during biogas production in anaerobic fermentation. Digestate can be returned to cropland as a replacement for chemical fertilizer regarding its cost-effectiveness and rich nutrient content. However, the optimal rates of digestate to substitute chemical fertilizer have not been validated academically. A field study on nine treatments of no fertilizer, chemical fertilizer, and digestate at different rates was conducted to investigate the effects of substituting chemical fertilizer with digestate. The results revealed that replacing chemical fertilizer with liquid digestate did not significantly affect the rice growth regarding the maximum number of seedlings, plant height, tiller numbers, spikelets numbers, ear length, the number of grains per spike, and grain yields. However, improvements were found in the maximum number of seedlings, plant height, tiller number spikelet numbers, the area of the second and third backward leaves, grain yields, and quality when liquid and solid digestate were combined. Furthermore, taking the nutrient inputs, rice growth, grain yield, and quality into consideration, applying liquid digestate of 150 t ha −1 and 75 t ha −1 of liquid combined with 15 t ha −1 solid digestate was suggested for rice production at the study venue.

Keywords: liquid digestate; solid digestate; rice growth; rice grain quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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