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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 46(5)

Plant-available nitrogen supply from granulated biosolids: implications for land application guidelines

S. M. Eldridge A B C F , K. Y. Chan A B , Z. H. Xu D , C. R. Chen D and I. Barchia E
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Centre for Recycled Organics in Agriculture.

B NSW Department of Primary Industries, Locked Bag 4, Richmond, NSW 2753, Australia.

C Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia.

D Centre for Forestry and Horticultural Research and School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia.

E NSW Department of Primary Industries, Camden, NSW 2570, Australia.

F Corresponding author. Email: simon.eldridge@dpi.nsw.gov.au

Australian Journal of Soil Research 46(5) 423-436 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR07234
Submitted: 24 December 2007  Accepted: 20 May 2008   Published: 5 August 2008

Abstract

Current State government guidelines attempt to ensure that the supply of plant available nitrogen (PAN) from land-applied biosolids does not exceed the crop’s requirement for mineral nitrogen (N), in order to minimise the risk of excess nitrate contaminating surface and groundwater. In estimating a suitable application rate, current guideline methodology assumes a fixed proportion of the organic N in the biosolids will be mineralised in the first year following the application for all situations. Our study included a field trial and a field incubation study to assess N mineralisation for both a granulated biosolid and a dewatered biosolid product, together with an additional laboratory incubation study for the granulated biosolid product. The application rates were 12, 24, and 48 dry t/ha for the granulated biosolids and 22 dry t/ha for the dewatered biosolids.

Our results showed that the guideline procedure underestimated the supply of mineral N from the biosolid-treated soils, with more than 3 times the predicted amount being supplied by the biosolids at all application rates. The excess supply of mineral N was due to a much larger proportion of the biosolid organic N being mineralised than the assumed 25%, as well as a significant contribution of mineral N from the soil itself (which is ignored in the estimation calculation). The proportion of biosolid organic N mineralised in the 12-month field incubation study for the 3 granulated biosolid treatments (12, 24, and 48 dry t/ha) and the dewatered biosolid treatment (22 dry t/ha) were estimated to be 54%, 48%, 45%, and 53%, respectively, in our field incubation study. Both the laboratory and field incubation studies found that most of the biosolid mineralisable organic N was mineralised rapidly during the early stages of the incubation. In the field incubation, the 24 dry t/ha granulated biosolid treatment had 35% of its organic N mineralised within the first 2 months following application, while all granulated biosolid treatments in the laboratory incubations had by, day 29, supplied >50% of the mineral N they would supply for the whole 216-day incubation. This release pattern for the supply of PAN from biosolid organic N should be factored into fertiliser application strategies. Our study reveals some of the shortcomings of the currently recommended ‘one size fits all’ approach for estimating the PAN supply from land-applied biosolids. Further research on the development of an effective rapid assessment for the mineralisable N content in organic wastes and soils, in combination with modelling, may improve our capacity to predict PAN supply from land-applied organic wastes in the future.

Additional keywords: biosolids, nitrogen, mineralisation, turf, guidelines, land use, organic fertilisers, organic matter, soil carbon.


Acknowledgments

Financial support from Sydney Water and the Department of Environment, Conservation and Climate Change (NSW) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank Albert Oates for technical assistance in the laboratory incubation study, as well as Phillip Pengelly, Darren Fahey, and Joanne Tubby for their technical assistance in the field incubation study and the turf field trial. We also thank Ildiko Meszaros for her assistance with the mineral N soil extractions, and Rene Diocares for assistance with the analysis of these samples. Dr David Herridge is also gratefully acknowledged and thanked for the many helpful suggestions he made on earlier draft versions of this paper. Z.H.X and C.R.C would like to acknowledge the funding support from the Australian Research Council.


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