Scholarly record

BIOCHAR FROM CHICKEN MANURE ENRICHED WITH IODINE

Svetlana Selivanovskaya

Abstract

Chicken manure is one of the massively produced wastes in the agriculture, and pyrolysis may be a good way of its treatment. Biochar obtained in the process of pyrolysis may be used as soil fertilizer since it improves soil water and air balance, stabilizes pH, provides plants and soil microbiota with nutrients. In the present study, chicken manure with sawdust was pyrolyzed at 400 ?C (residence time 2 h), and biochar obtained was added to soil in a dose of 30 t ha-1 in a field experiment. Wheat was planted in the following experimental plots: control (C), soil and biochar (B), soil and complex mineral fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (F). Additionally, biochar was enriched with iodine in a ratio of 2% and added to soil in a dose of 30 t ha-1 (I). Wheat yield on the C field was estimated to be 17.57 centners ha-1. On the other fields it was 41, 52 and 52% higher (for the variants F, B and I, correspondingly). Metabolic activity of soil microorganisms in the variants B and I was comparable with that in the control soil, while significantly differed from control in the F variant. Iodine enrichment of biochar led to higher iodine content in soil (81%) as well as in plant biomass (56%) as compared with control. Grain quality of wheat grown with both types of biochar was higher as compared with C and F variants in terms of protein, ?-amylase and gluten content. It can be concluded that biochar made of chicken manure is an alternative fertilizer that increases plant yield and quality without affecting soil microbiota, and additional enrichment of biochar with iodine leads to higher iodine content in the plants and therefore may help to provide people with this microelement in the iodine-deficit regions.

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