By Jeff Mulhollem
When farmers apply poultry litter — chicken manure — to fields as fertilizer, it adds nutrients to the soil like phosphorus that plants need. However, phosphorus can dissolve in water and runoff into streams instead of going into crops, causing water pollution and economic loss for farmers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s a huge problem in watersheds like the Chesapeake Bay, where farmers raise hundreds of millions of chickens each year. In an effort to reduce phosphorus runoff, a team led by Penn State researchers recently demonstrated that the use of a novel soil additive might be effective.
The additive — RhizoSorb, a patented soil-fertilizer product designed to greatly increase phosphorus fertilizer efficiency — was born from research in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. Applied with fertilizer, it reduces phosphorus runoff, saves farmers money by leaving more fertilizer in the fields for crops, lowers greenhouse gas emissions and enhances crop uptake. In a new study, the researchers tested whether its active ingredient — a modified aluminum oxide blend that binds phosphate to its surface — could reduce soluble phosphorus losses from agricultural fields that receive poultry litter applications.
The researchers found that adding RhizoSorb to fields before applications of poultry litter reduced water-extractable phosphorus — the phosphorus most likely to run off in rainwater — by 26% to 53%. They recently published their findings in Agricultural and Environmental Letters.
Study senior author and team leader Charles White, associate professor and extension specialist in soil fertility and nutrient management at Penn State, explained that in this context, Rhizosorb essentially detains phosphorus in the poultry litter.
Source : psu.edu