Sewage sludge sugarcane trash based compost and synthetic aggregates as peat substitutes in containerized media for crop production

Evaluation of biochar-anaerobic potato digestate mixtures as renewable components of horticultural potting media

“…In 2011 nearly 5.2 million m 3 of sphagnum peat moss was consumed in the United States for horticultural applications, with approximately 96% of this imported from Canada (USGS statistics http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/peat). Peatlands in the northern hemisphere store approximately onethird of world's CO 2 (Gorham, 1991), and there is increasing public concern over their destruction during peat harvest (Barkham, 1993;Robertson, 1993;Zaller, 2007;Blok and Verhagen, 2009;Jayasinghe et al, 2010). The utilization of farm, industrial and consumer waste by-products as components of nursery substrates has been extensively investigated during the past several decades, with a wide variety of materials having been examined (Chong, 2005;Krucker et al, 2010;Vaughn et al, 2013).…”

Sugarcane bagasse and leaves: foreseeable biomass of biofuel and bio‐products

“…Jayasinghe et al 66 attempted to improve the growth and nutrition of lettuce using ST-based sewage sludge. These studies promote the utilization of ST-based growth medium in horticulture as an alternative to the widely used and expensive peat.…”

Synthetic Aggregates Produced by Different Wastes as a Soil Ameliorant, a Potting Media Component and a Waste Management Option.

“…Increased biomass production of lettuce was reported from the sewage sludge sugarcane trash compost and synthetic red soil aggregate assayed media compared to peat media. Moreover, due to physical and chemical characteristics of the media developed by sewage sludge sugarcane trash compost and synthetic red soil aggregate based media can be considered as valuable partial peat substitutes for lettuce, especially at the rates of 40% of sewage sludge sugarcane trash compost, 20% of red soil aggregates and 40% of peat, which gave the maximum growth parameters and the highest biomass yield of the lettuce when compared to peat (Jayasinghe et al, 2009f). In addition, red soil synthetic aggregates and zeolite can be used as an alternative medium for French marigold production which gave higher growth and yield (Jayasinghe et al, 2009g).…”