The effects of whey application on the soil biological properties and plant growth

Abstract

Whey is an industrial dairy by-product. Whey proteins present in whey are valuable functional ingredients with a variety of applications. Because of high investment and management costs, many medium and small-scale cheese manufacturing plants choose the way to waste whey by discharging it to land without refining while large companies prefer to evaluate it. In this experiment were investigated the effects of whey application on some growth parameters of test plant and soil biological properties. For this purpose, greenhouse experiment was conducted to determine the effects of different whey powder solution (6% dry matter) such as no demineralized whey powder (NDWP), 50% demineralized whey powder (50% DWP) and whey protein powder (WPP) on maize growth and biological properties of soils using increasing application rates (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 ml/kg) as three replication. At the end of the study generally, all whey treatments influenced the soil microbiological properties in comparison with the control, indicating activation by microorganisms. The addition of different doses of different whey solutions caused a rapid and significant increase in microbial biomass C, soil respiration, dehydrogenase activity and catalase activity in soil; this increase was especially noticeable in soils treated with NDWP and 50% DWP. Similarly, addition of 50% DWP to the soil increased values of plant height, fresh plant weight and fresh root weight compared to the control and other whey. Whey has a positive effect on soil biological properties. In conclusion, we can say that this waste product, which has high nutrient element content, could be used in fertilization practices especially as a nitrogen source and multi-perspective studies need to be carried out on this topic.