Does Loading Ammonium to Sorbents Affect Plant Availability in Soil?

Bente Foereid and Julia Szocs
Additional contact information
Bente Foereid: Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research Pb 115, NO-1431 Ås, Norway
Julia Szocs: Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research Pb 115, NO-1431 Ås, Norway

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: Sorption to cheap sorbents can be used to concentrate nutrients from liquid waste streams and make them into fertilisers. In this study we assess how plant available is ammonium nitrogen (N) sorbed to three sorbents, and if the potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after a non-growing season is affected by sorption. Ammonium-N labelled with N15 was sorbed to biochar, bentonite and zeolite. Treatments where N was sorbed and where N and sorbents were applied separately were tested in a pot experiment with wheat, and soil samples were then frozen and dried to simulate non-growing seasons. After thawing and re-wetting, GHG emissions from the soil were assessed. There was no difference between sorption treatments in biomass or N uptake or fertiliser N left in the soil, and little difference between sorption treatments in gas emissions after the non-growing seasons was seen. We conclude that ammonium applied sorbed to these sorbents is as plant available as ammonium applied the conventional way. GHG emissions at the beginning of the next season are also not affected by ammonium applied sorbed.

Keywords: ammonium sorption; bentonite; zeolite; biochar; greenhouse gases; plant availability (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:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/7/1057/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/7/1057/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:7:p:1057-:d:866498

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().