Gaseous Emissions after Soil Application of Pellet Made from Composted Pig Slurry Solid Fraction: Effect of Application Method and Pellet Diameter

Niccolò Pampuro, Patrizia Busato and Eugenio Cavallo
Additional contact information
Niccolò Pampuro: Institute for Agricultural and Earth Moving Machines (IMAMOTER), Italian National Research Council (CNR)—Strada delle Cacce, 73-10135 Torino, Italy
Patrizia Busato: Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Sciences, University of Turin—Largo Paolo Braccini, 2–10095 Grugliasco, Italy
Eugenio Cavallo: Institute for Agricultural and Earth Moving Machines (IMAMOTER), Italian National Research Council (CNR)—Strada delle Cacce, 73-10135 Torino, Italy

Agriculture, 2018, vol. 8, issue 8, 1-11

Abstract: The study aimed at determining ammonia and GHG emissions from soil fertilized with pellets made from composted pig slurry solid fraction and to evaluate the effects of pellet diameter and pellet application method on gaseous emissions. A laboratory scale experiment was carried out investigating two composts: pig slurry solid fraction compost (SSFC) and pig slurry solid fraction mixed with wood chips compost (WCC). The two composts were pelettized in two different diameters—6 and 8 mm—by means of mechanical pelletizer. In total, eight fertilized treatments plus one unfertilized control were included in the experiment. The investigated pellets were applied at the same nitrogen rate (equivalent to 200 kg ha −1 ) using two different methods (on soil surface and incorporated into the soil). Ammonia (NH 3 ) emission was monitored immediately after pellet application, while nitrous oxide (N 2 O), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) were measured on a 57-day incubation period. As expected, ammonia volatilization was not detected from any of the treatments investigated. At the end of the experiment, the cumulative amounts of N 2 O, CO 2 and CH 4 ranged from 2.70 mg N-N 2 O m −2 to 24.30 mg N-N 2 O m −2 , from 601.89 mg C-CO 2 m −2 to 1170.34 mg C-CO 2 m −2 and from 1.22 mg C-CH 4 m −2 to 1.31 mg C-CH 4 m −2 , respectively. The overall results of the investigation highlighted that application on the soil surface reduced nitrous oxide emission, while the carbon dioxide emission increased significantly with smaller pellet diameter.

Keywords: pelletizing; composting; pig manure; GHG; ammonia (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: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/8/119/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/8/119/ (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:8:y:2018:i:8:p:119-:d:161191

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 ().