Soil biosolarization utilizes passive solar heating, organic amendments, and fermentation processes to create conditions that suppress agricultural pests and improve soil quality. Appropriate amendments are key to delivering fermentable nutrients, microorganisms, and biopesticides to soil to promote biosolarization efficacy. The utility of hulls and shells left over from industrial almond processing was assessed in the context of biosolarization. Soil bioreactor and field trial experiments indicated that hulls and shells inherently contain organic acid biopesticides. These acids may further accumulate due to microbial acidogenesis in the soil during biosolarization although this effect depends on the variety of almond associated with the hulls and shells. Biosolarization with hull and shell amendments was observed to promote inactivation of root lesion nematode (<i>Pratylenchus penetrans</i>) in the soil during pre-plant treatment of an almond orchard. Additionally, biosolarized soils exhibited significant elevation of nitrogen, potassium, carbon, and organic matter. Almond trees grown in biosolarized soils required differing adaptation periods depending on their variety. These results suggest that biosolarization may offer a new circular economy approach to valorizing almond hulls and shells.

Utilization of almond processing residual biomass for soil biosolarization

ACS Fall 2020 Virtual Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.