Sustainable Biomass Resources for Environmental, Agronomic, Biomaterials and Energy Applications 1 / Ressources de biomasse durables pour des applications environnementales, agronomiques, de biomatériaux et énergétiques 1
<p>Soil application of raw winery wastes is a procedure of doubtful appropriateness, mainly because of waste properties, i.e. very acidic pH; high electrical conductivity; and high content of polyphenols. The disposal of winery waste on soils may cause various environmental and health hazards as for example soil overloading with polyphenols and salts, phytotoxicity to plants, odor nuisance etc. Pathogens, which may still be present in the decomposed material could spread plants and soil diseases, while waste piles attract insects, pests, domestic rodents and wildlife which may threaten public and animal health. Despite these facts, many wine producers discharge winery waste to the nearby agricultural or forest ecosystems, without treatment although this type of agricultural waste could be a significant source of organic matter and nutrients.</p><p>&#160;</p><p>In general, degradation of winery waste is a slow procedure which becomes even slower under the xerothermic climatic conditions in Greece, which may slow down the microbially mediated decomposition of organic matter and nutrients cycling; degradation of winery waste piles takes more than 5 years to be completed naturally. However, the final products are of doubtful appropriateness for fertilization use, mainly because of low quality organic matter and low nutrients content (lost mainly due to the exposure of piles to uncontrolled environmental conditions for years).</p><p>&#160;</p><p>This study aims to highlight the advantages of composting winery wastes by using also other agricultural wastes and additives as feedstock to produce a safe and environment friendly compost, appropriate for application to agricultural ecosystems. For this a 41 hectares vineyard in North Greece of about 400 tn grapes yield annually and generation of approximately 100 tn of waste was selected. Winery waste was collected after harvesting and wine-making period of 2018 and composted with cow manure, wheat straw and clinoptilolite up to 5%.</p><p>&#160;</p><p>Composting phase lasted 5 months, and during this period the pile was monitored as regard temperature, moisture and oxygen content. After composting completion, the final product was fully characterized in terms of its physical and chemical properties, considering national legislation organic materials reuse on soils. The outcomes of this study show a great potential for managing such waste types by composting using clinoptilolite in the feedstock materials since the final product has suitable physical and chemical properties for many crops, i.e. slight alkaline pH, low electrical conductivity, low polyphenol content and high content of available nutrient, therefore can be used as soil amendment or organic fertilizer.</p>
<p>In field homogenous application of fertilizers can be considered as a non-environment friendly agricultural practice as it ignores site specific variations of soil and plant properties. Conventional fertilizing management usually results in overfertilization guiding to burdens of the environment in terms of chemical pollution in soil-water system and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere. The effects are expected to be more severe in Mediterranean region under the evolving climate change. Site-specific fertilizing management on the other hand, poses a practice that is adapted to high precision spatial soil, climatic and plant conditions. In this sense, the agricultural practices are properly adjusted to the needs of the crops. The research is focused on the assessment of the impacts of conventional and site-specific management of nitrogen fertilization to carbon and water footprint at cotton cultivation in field level. The study area concerns two cotton fields in Central Greece that were monitored with the use of classical soil analytical methods and remote sensing sensors throughout a cultivation period. The monitoring process led to the delineation of the fields in different management zones needing variable fertilizing doses. Further, all conventionally applied practices were annotated concerning the last 4-year period in order to collect historical fertilizing data. In both cases (conventional and site-specific) the carbon and water (blue, green, grey) footprints of the two fields were calculated. Carbon footprint was calculated by assessing IPCC 2006 guidelines (updated in 2019) as regards direct and LULUCF emissions. For this, Tier 2 emission factors were used for the main emission categories, as these were defined by the Greek State, while for the other categories, emission factors of Tier 1 of IPCC guidelines were used. For the determination of water footprint, local meteorological data and cotton development stages concerning Greek conditions were used. The determination of the footprints was realized with the use of a software tool developed by the BalkanROAD project in the framework of INTERREG Balkan-Mediterranean 2014-2020 programme, which addresses territorial competitiveness and environment. Preliminary results show encouraging prospective for the improvement of carbon and water footprint when shifting from conventional to site-specific management.</p>
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