Biomass production through grey water fertigation in eucalyptus hybrid and its economic significance

Abstract

Bioenergy demand is accelerating day by day due to increase in population pressure whereas on other end worldwide water scarcity for irrigation is also becoming a challenge. This problem may be resolved through the fertigation with grey water for biomass production through short rotation intensive cultural plantation systems (SRICPS). The grey water generated from households constitutes the major portion of domestic wastewater with higher nutritive value. Reuse and recycling of grey water save natural water resources require for irrigation and moreover greywater use would be an added advantage to increase in the biomass due to its nutritive quality. Therefore, in present study, an experimental trial has been done for comparison of SRICPS biomass production within treatment (fertigated with greywater) and control (irrigated with bore well water) plots for biomass growth rate, biomass deficit and estimation of actual and potential biomass productivity with fertigation and control irrigation in same environmental condition by planting Eucalyptus hybrid (clone K‐413). Eucalyptus hybrid (clone K‐413) above ground biomass (AGBM) production per tree was observed to be 34.19 kg tree−1 in treatment plots as compared to 25.69 kg tree−1 in control plots during initial 2‐year of field observation and it envisages higher economic returns by fertigation due to higher biomass production per unit area as compared to control irrigation. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 222–226, 2015