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Testing laboratory parameters of compost tea
31-36Views:383During the industrial production of broiler chicken, a large amount of manure is produced, of which easily contained nitrogen content (without pre-treatment) is released into the atmosphere as an air pollutant. In our experiments, we aimed to prepare compost tea, also known as water extract of compost, from pre-treated poultry manure in order to create a product can be utilized as liquid nutrient supply. The poultry manure source was the Baromfi-Coop Ltd. located in Nyírjákó, Hungary, where it was treated by composting. As a result of this pre-treatment of the poultry manure, its nutrient parameters improve and nitrogen is present in a form that is better utilized for plants. Furthermore, this product is suitable for further utilization and also can be the base material for a brand-new product. For this reason the effects of compost/water ratio, incubation time, low oxygen level, and extraction time on the parameters of the resulted product were studied in the frame of developing new soil-life enhancing microbial product, so-called compost tea.
Chemical parameters of the compost used as base material strongly determined the properties of the resulted compost tea, especially the ratio of the various nitrogen forms, their concentration and the salt content. It was found that adding water at a higher rate that means 1/40 and 1/50 mixing ratios results in more cost-effective production. In the experiment the compost tea were held under oxygen-poor conditions, therefore pH of the extractions decreased, which influenced the quality and quantity of their nutrient content.
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Examination of compost maturity using reflectance
29-34Views:120Composting is one of the most popular recycling processes for organic waste. Composting plays an important role in waste and by-product management and is becoming increasingly important in both sustainable energy management and circular economy. Composting transforms organic matter to produce a safe and stable by-product (compost) that can be applied to arable land in a similar way to fertilizer. Physical, chemical and biological methods can be used to monitor the process and to determine the maturity of the compost, as spectrometric/spectroscopic methods play an important role in the analysis of different environmental samples.
Our aim was to (1) non-destructively detect the effects of different additive ratios on the spectral properties of the composting process and the spectral data of different compost mixtures, (2) to find the wavelength ranges of the reflectance curve (inflection points) sensitive to compost maturity, (3) to determine the correlation between the inflection points and the chemical and physical parameters measured in compost by conventional methods.
The mixture of broiler and hen manure and zeolite was composted 62 days in windrow composting. In the composting experiment, the moisture content and temperature (°C) were measured every three days and compost samples were taken and in 10% destillated aquaeous suspension were measured the pH and electrical conductivity (mS cm-1). Compost samples dried to mass stability were spectrally analyzed in the wavelength range 400–1000 nm with AvaSpec 2048 spectrometer.
Based on the results, the reflectance of mature compost were smaller in the last days of composting than the reflectance values of day 0 samples, thus compost maturity can be detected spectral in the VIS-NIR wavelength range. For the tested compost prisms, the reflectance of each sampling day shows a constant slope, with a significant overlap of the reflectance curves up to 400–700 nm wavelength range, and there was a breakpoint in the 700–750 nm wavelength range which was proved by binary encoding.
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Effect of compost/water ratio on some main parameter of compost solutions
117-121Views:184Composting is an efficient technology for the utilisation of by-products and waste. It is also suitable for treating raw materials to convert fertilisers that are not recommended for application without pre-processing. Such is the case with poultry manure, which is very important to pre-treat due to its hazardous properties. An increasingly common form of compost is compost tea, which is made by soaking compost in water. In our experiment, we made compost tea from a composted and granulated poultry manure product. Three mixing ratios were used (1/5, 1/10, 1/10) and compost teas were set for three different extraction times (24–48–72 hours). After elimination of the experiment, the pH, EC, and nitrate and ammonium contents of the samples were measured. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a difference between each mixing ratio and different extraction times. Based on our results, it can be said that the fluctuation of pH values during the experiment was low. Regardless of the mixing ratio and extraction time, the samples were in the slightly acidic range. The electrical conductivity, nitrate and ammonium content follow a similar trend, the values decrease significantly with the increase of the mixing ratio. Similar tendency was observed at the incubation time. The concentrations of both EC and nitrogen forms increase with increasing incubation time, in most cases significantly.
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Examination of the effect of pelleted poultry manure products on a sunflower test plant in a laboratory model experiment
83-88Views:164Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is one of the most important oil plants in Hungary, with a sown area of more than 627.000 ha in 2019. Sunflower cultivation is primarily important for use in the oil industry, but its role in feed and beekeeping cannot be neglected either. Sunflower adapts well to different production areas in terms of soil demand, yet, as important fact, it must be grown on soils with poorer conditions with intensive nutrient replenishment. From the agri-environmental point of view, in addition to the use of pelleted poultry manure products, which are also new to the consumer market, is of paramount importance. Their advantages include a wide range of nutrients as well as a soil structure improving effect.
In our research, we investigated the starter effect of pelleted poultry manure products applied at different doses (200 kg ha-1 and 400 kg ha-1) on sandy soil with humus using a sunflower plant. The aim of our research to investigate the effect of using pelleted fertilizer products as starter fertilizers on sunflower plant germination, and investigate the effect of poultry manure products on soils.
Based on our results, it can be stated that the pigment content (chlorophyll and carotenoid content) was positively influenced by the higher dose treatments (400 kg ha-1), thus increasing the photosynthetically active leaf area. Compared to the control, the carotenoid content in the test plants of the treatments increased, and the differences of this treatment proved to be significant (p<0.05). Our experiments supported the beneficial effect of pelleted poultry manure-based products in the soil-plant system.
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Examination and statistical evaluation of physico-chemical parameters of windrow composting
33-38Views:189The treatment and utilization of plant and animal waste and by-products from agriculture is very diverse. Traditional environmental management practices for waste management have been retained through soil conservation and the applied of recycle degradable organic substances in soil. The management of by-products from agriculture (animal husbandry) is important because a closed loop can be created to utilize by-products (manure, feathers) from the production of the main product (eggs, meat, milk) and to form a raw material for a new product. It is important to treat the resulting by-products, especially deep-litter manure, as it has served as a basis for compost-treated manure to develop an organic-based, soil-conditioning product line. Poultry manure by itself is not suitable as a substrate for aerobic decomposition, so it has to be mixed with other substances (zeolite, bentonite, soil), because of its high nutrient capacity, it is an acidifying substance.
The aim of this study was to compost the mixture of poultry manure and hen manure by the addition of zeolite and to monitor the composting process. It was also our aim to statistically determine the effect of the zeolite on parameters describing the composting process.
The windrow composting experiments were set up in the composting area of the University of Debrecen, Institute of Water and Environmental Management. The composting experiment was 62 days long, during which the main parameters describing the composting process were continuously monitored: temperature (°C), moisture content (w/w%), electrical conductivity (mS/cm), organic matter content (w/w%), examination of nitrogen forms (w/w%). In this study, three factors were investigated: temperature, humidity, and pH. For statistical evaluation, R software and RStudio user interface were used. We developed a repeated measurement model, in which the fixed and random effects were determined for our parameters under study, and the resulting relationships were shown on interaction plots.
Based on our results, the temperature of the prisms has become independent of the ambient temperature and the composting stages can be separated in both the control and the zeolite treated prisms. In the repeated measurement model, we proved that treatment, time and treatment: time interaction were significant at both temperature and pH.