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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Florence, South Carolina » Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #323197
Title: Nitrous oxide emissions from nitrogen enriched low-phosphorus pelletized broiler litter

Author
item Szogi, Ariel
item Ro, Kyoung
item Shumaker, Paul

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/26/2015
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: High concentration of the poultry industry in certain regions of the United States promoted an excess of soil nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) because of recurrent land application of broiler litter waste. A new waste treatment technology developed by USDA-ARS, called “Quick Wash”, can recover phosphates from broiler litter. While many studies have shown that the addition of broiler litter to soil may increase nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, limited information is available on the effect of low-P pelletized broiler litter produced from the USDA-ARS process. Our objective was to carry out a laboratory test to estimate N2O emissions from a Norfolk loamy sand soil amended with N enriched P-extracted broiler litter pellets with ammonium sulfate. Undisturbed soil cores (15 cm x 5 cm diam.) received the following amendments: untreated litter, pelletized litter, pelletized low-P litter, and pelletized N enriched low-P (10% N) at a rate of 140 kg N/ha. All cores were adjusted to 60 % water-filled porosity, enclosed in plastic jars that were incubated at 25°C for 68 d, with periodic N2O emission measurements. The highest N2O flux peaks were observed at day 16 with the pelletized litter (348 ng N/sq-cm/h) and at day 20 with N enriched low-P pelletized litter (87 ng N/sq-cm/h) while the lowest flux peak was observed at day 7 with the low-P pelletized litter (37 ng N/sq-cm/h). Accordingly, pelletized, N enriched low-P, and low-P litter had a cumulative N2O production of 1261, 991, and 287 micro g N20/kg soil, respectively. Further detailed discussion of the impact of these amendments on soil N2O emissions will be discussed in our presentation.