Abstract
An agronomic strategy to mitigate climate change impact can be the build-up of soil organic carbon. Among agronomic management approaches, the administration of organic fertilizers like livestock manure represents an effective strategy to increase soil organic carbon. However, livestock manure usually contains a high amount of water, reducing its sustainable delocalization and impacting on greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient leaching. Furthermore, the possible presence of weed seeds and harmful microorganisms could reduce the agronomic value of the manure. To overcome these issues, the combined effects of dewatering, composting and pelleting were investigated on livestock manure to produce sustainable organic fertilizers. Our results showed that composting and pelleting can represent a feasible and sustainable solution to reduce the potential risks related to the presence of weed seeds and harmful bacteria, concentrating nutrients and allowing a sustainable valorization and delocalization of the livestock manure. In addition, the processed manures were assessed as fertilizers in the growing medium (GM), displaying an increase in water retention and nutrient availability and a decrease of GM temperature and weed seed emergences. However, further study is needed to validate, both in open field and greenhouse productions, the effects of the proposed fertilizers in real cropping systems.
Highlights
The increase of the soil organic carbon (SOC) content represents one of the most common agronomic practices to mitigate climate change impacts [1,2]
In the case of using untreated organic residues as soil improver, an imbalance in nutrient availability and phytotoxicity effects can be observed on plant growth
The principal effect of dewatered slurry was a remarkable increase in important parameters such as total solids, total organic C and C/N, and decreasing electrical conductivity (EC) (Table 1) compared to the raw slurry
Summary
The increase of the soil organic carbon (SOC) content represents one of the most common agronomic practices to mitigate climate change impacts [1,2]. Livestock manure contains a relatively greater proportion of organic carbon and mineral nutrients; livestock manure might be used to partially replace inorganic fertilizers in crop production [4,5,6,7]. Current management and application of the raw manure can contribute to reduced soil and water qualities due to the leaching of nutrients and phytotoxic elements [8]. Livestock manure can only be used in soil close to the production site due to its greater water content, reducing its possible delocalization [9]. Other problems related to the use of the livestock manure can be the presence of weed seeds and harmful microorganisms [10,11]
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