Short-Term Nitrogen Uptake of Barley from Differently Processed Biogas Digestate in Pot Experiments

Claudia Maurer, Julia Seiler-Petzold, Rudolf Schulz and Joachim Müller
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Claudia Maurer: Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Tropics and Subtropics Group (440e), University of Hohenheim, Garbenstraße 9, D-70599 Stuttgart, Germany
Julia Seiler-Petzold: Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Tropics and Subtropics Group (440e), University of Hohenheim, Garbenstraße 9, D-70599 Stuttgart, Germany
Rudolf Schulz: Institute of Crop Science, Fertilization and Soil Matter Dynamics (340i), University of Hohenheim, Fruwirthstraße 20, D-70599 Stuttgart, Germany
Joachim Müller: Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Tropics and Subtropics Group (440e), University of Hohenheim, Garbenstraße 9, D-70599 Stuttgart, Germany

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: The use of biogas digestate as fertilizer is limited by the farm nutrient balance. Mechanical separation and drying of digestate increases its transport worthiness as well as the economic feasibility of nutrient export. This study compares the fertilizer effect of four treatments of digestate originating from two biogas plants: untreated digestate, liquid and solid fraction of separated digestate and dried solid fraction of separated digestate. Pot experiments with barley were performed with two fertilization levels for different digestate variants. Above-ground biomass yield, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) content in biomass and plant uptake efficiency were highlighted. The results showed that all variants have higher above-ground biomass yield than the control. Due to the reduced amount of easily available N, short-term N uptake of barley from solid fractions of digestate was low. The treatments with the dried solid fraction at low fertilization level showed up to 59% lower N removal from soil and, at high fertilization level, up to 83% lower N removal compared to the respective fresh solid fraction (100%). Depending on the feedstock of biogas plants and processing of digestate, N availability varied and influenced the short-term N uptake. It is recommended that digestate processing should be combined with ammonia recovery to prevent N losses to the environment.

Keywords: biogas digestate; drying; mechanical separation; plant nitrogen uptake; pot experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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