Abstract
Abstract Bioenergy is sustainable and sufficient only if both the production technology and coproduct utilisation are environmentally friendly. Hence, we suggest the establishment of small-scale willow Short Rotation Coppice close to biogas plants to solve the digestate utilisation problems and to promote woodchip production without mineral fertilisers. Our small-scale experiment with young Salix plants revealed that application of biogas digestate increased plant biomass production. However, an overdose of added nutrients can be harmful and cause young plant dieback due to root damage. The impact of digestate on plants in our experiment was similar or even superior to the impact of the original slurry used for anaerobic digestion by the same biogas plant. Therefore we conclude that anaerobic fermentation did not degrade the nutrient uptake by plants and digestate can replace traditional organic fertilisers in non-food crops.
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