In a newly published study, researchers dug into how fertilizing with manure affects soil quality, compared with inorganic fertilizer.
Ekrem Ozlu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his team studied two fields in South Dakota. From 2003 to 2015, the research team applied either manure or inorganic fertilizer to field plots growing corn and soybeans. They used low, medium, and high manure levels, and medium and high inorganic fertilizer levels. They also had a control treatment of no soil additives to provide a comparison.
In the summer of 2015, they collected soil samples at a variety of depths using a push probe auger. Then they analyzed the samples.
- Manure helped keep soil pH—a measure of acidity or alkalinity—in a healthy range for crops. Inorganic fertilizer made the soil more acidic.
- Manure increased soil organic carbon for all the measured soil depths compared to inorganic fertilizer and control treatments. More carbon means better soil structure.
- Manure significantly increased total nitrogen compared to fertilizer treatments. Nitrogen is key to plant growth.
- Manure increased water-stable aggregates. These are groups of soil particles that stick to each other. Increased water-stable aggregates help soil resist water erosion. Inorganic fertilizer application decreased these aggregates.
Is it time to re-purpose the world's sewage into fertilizer?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 31 2018, @11:26PM (1 child)
Processed, yes. Highly processed, no. I think raising the temperature to 99 Celsius and holding it there for a few days would be more than sufficient. The problem is all the various drugs that people take. Also contamination with heavy metals.
FWIW, most of the heating can be done by an anerobic digestion process, and only the last little bit of heat requires external heat supply. And you can do it as a flow process, but you will probably need a pretty large pipeline.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @11:36PM
Yes, OP in this thread already mentioned the drugs, etc. I assumed that was part of the "highly processed" aspect to make it safe. Heat is only part of it to kill off disease/parasite issues.