Minet, E.P. and Jahangir, M.M.R. and Krol, D.J. and Rochford, N. and Fenton, O. and Rooney, A. Denise and Lanigan, G. and Forrestal, P.J. and Breslin, Carmel B. and Richards, K.G. (2016) Amendment of cattle slurry with the nitrification inhibitor dicyandiamide during storage: A new effective and practical N2O mitigation measure for landspreading. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 215. pp. 68-75. ISSN 0167-8809

Preview

Download (724kB) | Preview

Abstract

Large quantities of organic manures and soiled water are generated by cattle housing every year. These organic wastes are stored until soil conditions are suitable for landspreading or there is a crop requirement for nutrients. After land application, some nitrogen (N) is lost through the direct emission of nitrous oxide (N2O), a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) produced by nitrification and partial denitrification of mineral N. The objective of this research was to investigate whether N2O losses could be mitigated after applying cattle slurry pre-mixed with the nitrification inhibitor dicyandiamide (DCD) during anaerobic storage. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, DCD mixed with slurry did not degrade for up to six months post amendment during an incubation study. These results highlight the feasibility of amending cattle slurry with DCD directly into slurry tanks any time before land application. This incubation experiment also showed that a slow release of DCD in slurry could be achieved if the amendment used was beads of a chitosan xerogel impregnated with DCD. A field study revealed that slurry application to grassland plots can cause large N2O emissions under wet and mild conditions when ammonia emissions are expected to be low. Slurry incubated with DCD for six month was effective at significantly (P < 0.01) decreasing N2O net cumulative emissions, which were 88% lower than in the slurry treatment with no DCD. The addition of DCD to slurry also reduced the fraction of N2O in the total GHG net cumulative emissions from 52% down to just 10%. Mixing slurry with DCD during storage could therefore offer farmers a cost-effective, practical, mitigation alternative to DCD broadcast application for the reduction of agricultural N losses.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The authors thank the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Research Stimulus Fund Programme—RSF 07545), the Irish Research Council and Teagasc (Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme Postdoctoral Fellowships program) and the INTERREG IV project BatFarm for funding this study. We also thank John Murphy and Cathal Somers (Teagasc Environment Research Centre) for their help in field/laboratory work, and Dr. Jim Grant (Teagasc Food Centre) for his help in statistical analysis. The sponsors had no other role in this study.
Keywords:	Nitrification inhibitor; Dicyandiamide; Slurry; Grassland; Nitrous oxide; Methane;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Chemistry
Item ID:	10748
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2015.09.014
Depositing User:	Dr. Denise Rooney
Date Deposited:	25 Apr 2019 13:54
Journal or Publication Title:	Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
Publisher:	Elsevier Masson
Refereed:	Yes
Funders:	Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Irish Research Council (IRC), Teagasc, INTERREG IV project BatFarm
URI:	https://www.sciencedirect.com
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

Repository Staff Only(login required)

Item control page

Downloads

Origin of downloads