Abstract
Invasive plant species threaten native species and habitats causing ecologic, economic and social burden. When creating climate friendly solutions by utilizing plant biomasses in biogas and fertilizer production, safety should be ensured concerning the use of residues. This study concentrates on the treatment of biomasses containing invasive plant material by tunnel and windrow composting, and by farm-scale and laboratory-scale anaerobic digestion (AD) in mesophilic conditions. Germination of the nationally settled and harmful invasive species Lupinus polyphyllus Lindl. was investigated after these processes. In addition, the role of the conditions found in the processes that destroyed seeds were studied, such as the time of exposure, temperature and static pressure. Dormant seeds are well protected against harsh conditions and can survive through various stress factors, but also become vulnerable as more factors are combined and time of exposure is extended. Our results suggest that the risks involved for the utilization of harmful invasive species increase with mesophilic temperatures and single treatments if the processing conditions are not stabile. One-month treatment with windrow composting showed a high risk for dormant seeds of L. polyphyllus seeds to survive, whereby extending the processing time reduced it substantially. Hard coated seeds can thus be broken with a combination of thermophilic temperatures, moisture and static pressure.
Highlights
Seeds were more likely to be dormant in 30 days than in 119 days compost (2.644 b), and less likely to survive dormant from the top (−24.689 b) and middle layers (−24.487 b)
Mesophilic temperature in the to middle layers had a positive effect on seed viability, but this is more likely in cases that or middle layers had a positive effect on seed viability, but this is more likely in cases tha the composting process is not working properly and the temperature is lower than usually
Lupinus polyphyllus causes severe damage for diversity, especially by overpowering vegetation in ruderates and road verges that can be considered as surrogate areas for meadow species
Summary
Invasive alien species (later IAS) cause a huge threat to global biodiversity [1] because of their impact on structure and the functioning of ecosystems [2]. IAS may cause vegetation changes and even threats to currently common native species [3,4]. Many pressures of biodiversity result from synthetic fertilizer production and their use [6,7], and the use of land for growing energy crops [8,9]. To decrease the need of synthetic fertilizers and to increase the production of renewable energy, mowed road verge vegetation, garden waste and other unintentionally grown plant biomass could be used to produce biogas and nutrient-rich sludge. Collecting mowed plant biomass for biogas production could benefit both energy production and the status of the natural environment as carbon and nutrients are removed from eutrophicated sites [10,11]
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