Waste from anaerobic digestion is considered as a mineral fertilizer and it is usually applied to agricultural land. The aim of our attempt was to enrich this waste from anaerobic digestion (digestate) with an organic component (in our case represented by haylage). For this purpose, we made different mixtures of digestate and haylage in different weight ratios. In the field trial, the effect of these mixtures on the soil, under standard agricultural conditions, was monitored. Selected accessible nutrients (P, K, Mg, Mn, Ca) and the amount of carbon and nitrogen in the soil were monitored. The results of the laboratory tests confirmed that the areas where the sowing and digestate mixtures were applied showed greater amounts of macro-and micronutrients in plant-accessible forms than the surface fertilized only with digestate or areas fertilized only with standard fertilizers.
Along with the current increase in the number of biogas plants, huge amounts of digestate, i.e. waste products, are being generated. The common practice in the Czech Republic is to plough the digestate into the land. In our field trial, we compared the fertilizing effects of standard fertilizers applied in the Czech Republic with digestate as the only fertilizer (e.g. digestate fibre and digestate liquor) in real agricultural conditions to find out whether a comparable amount of nitrogen is used in accordance with European legislation. The impact of separated digestate fibre and separated liquor on the soil fertility and quality was observed on the basis of the distribution of macro- and micronutrients in maize. The evaluation of growth increments in maize suggests that the fertilizing effects of digestate liquor or digestate fibre do not match the standard fertilizer in agriculture, but especially digestate liquor is comparable with other mineral fertilizers. Our field trial also shows that digestate liquor is a better fertilizer than digestate fibre, which may be explained by more appropriate ratios of available nutrients in digestate liquor. Digestate fibre may be recommended mainly for the aeration of clayey soil, but is not sustainable as fertilizer.
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