Greenhouse lettuce: assessing nutrient use efficiency of digested livestock manure as organic N-fertiliser
2014
Trinchera, A. | Baratella, V. | Rinaldi, S. | Renzaglia, M. | Marcucci, A. | Rea, E.
Given the short cultivation cycle of many greenhouse crops, the need to provide them with adequate nutrition is critical, especially when organic fertilization is applied: an organic N-fertilizer should be able to supply nitrogen at the proper time, without incurring luxury consumption or detrimental effects on the crop or environmental quality. Bovine livestock manure is characterized by high organic matter and N content, and its digestion or co-digestion under anaerobic conditions produces N-fertilizers applicable in organic greenhouse production. In a greenhouse experiment, plant lets of Lactuca sativa ('Romana') were transplanted into pots containing one of two soils with different textural, physical and chemical characteristics. Bovine livestock manure was digested alone or co-digested with corn silage, and the resulting solid portions of the dig-estates were used as organic fertilizers, applied at 200 or 400 kg N ha-1, and compared with urea applied at the same rates and an unfertilized control. After six weeks, lettuce fresh and dry weight, plant water content, dry matter content, total leaf area, number of leaves per plant, specific leaf fresh and dry weight, leaf N-content and related N-use efficiency were determined. Soil characteristics partially influenced the agronomic performance of organic fertilizers on lettuce production. Digested and co-digested livestock manure gave higher biomass dry weight, dry matter content and in a particular case, higher specific leaf weight compared with urea fertilization. Lettuce N-use efficiency of digestate and co-digestate was slightly lower than that recorded with urea, although it was strongly increased by digestate application at the lower rate in the loamy soil.
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