Assessment of tomato and wine processing solid wastes as soil amendments for biosolarization

Abstract

Pomaces from tomato paste and wine production are the most abundant fruit processing residues in California. These residues were examined as soil amendments for solarization to promote conditions conducive to soil disinfestation (biosolarization). Simulated biosolarization studies were performed in both aerobic and anaerobic soil environments and soil temperature elevation, pH, and evolution of CO2, H2 and CH4 gases were measured as metrics of soil microbial activity. Tomato pomace amendment induced conditions associated with soil pest inactivation, including elevation of soil temperature by up to 2°C for a duration of 4days under aerobic conditions and a reduction of soil pH from 6.5 to 4.68 under anaerobic conditions. White wine grape pomace amendment showed similar trends but to a lesser extent. Red wine grape pomace was generally less suitable for biosolarization due to significantly lower soil temperature elevations, reduced acidification relative to the other pomaces and induction of methanogenesis in the soil.

Weed seed inactivation in soil mesocosms via biosolarization with mature compost and tomato processing waste amendments

“…Additional relevant material properties such as water‐holding capacity, pH and organic matter content can be found in other published work . Prior work has demonstrated that the mature green waste compost used in this study is highly stable and does not induce respiration over time periods relevant to biosolarization when amended into soil by itself . As a result, the compost can be viewed as an inoculum to introduce lignocellulolytic microorganisms into the soil rather than as a source of digestible organic matter.…”

“…In this study, soil heating, VFA accumulation and weed seed mortality were determined in a mesocosm‐based biosolarizaion field trial using mature green waste compost and industrial tomato processing pomace (TP) (the waste skins and seeds from commercial tomato paste production) as soil amendments. These materials have been shown to be effective amendments for inducing fermentation and VFA production under biosolarization soil conditions while avoiding lingering phytotoxicity in the soil after treatment . In the present study, biosolarization with varying levels of compost and TP amendments in the soil was used to test the feasibility of inactivating seeds of two weedy forbs commonly found in California agriculture: Brassica nigra (black mustard) and Solanum nigrum (black nightshade).…”

The role of organic matter amendment level on soil heating, organic acid accumulation, and development of bacterial communities in solarized soil

“…Carbon dioxide evolution rate and cumulative respiration (cCER) were calculated as described previously (Simmons et al, 2013). The maximum predicted cumulative respiration (cCERmax) was calculated by fitting a saturation model to cCER versus time data using the non-linear fit command in Matlab (version 7.4.0.739, MathWorks, Natick, MA) as described elsewhere (Achmon et al, 2016).…”

Improving green waste composting by addition of sugarcane bagasse and exhausted grape marc

“…Addition of EGM can increase the composting temperature especially in the thermophilic phase and thereby ensure the effective destruction of pathogens and other undesirable organisms (Bustamante et al, 2013;Paradelo et al, 2013). Addition of EGM also tends to reduce the pH of the compost (perhaps because of the high water-soluble carbohydrate content of EGM) and may therefore help balance the pH during composting (Achmon et al, 2016). Winery and distillery wastes like EGM also tend to have low electrical conductivity (EC), high OM content, low heavy metal content, and significant contents of P and K that support microbial activity and reproduction during composting (Bustamante et al, 2011).…”