Biogas production presents many benefits to all organic farms. This process involves converting food and wood waste and animal manure into a natural gas-like fuel and a nutrient-rich effluent slurry. Effluent includes key nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are readily accessible by plants. As a result, biogas effluent has the potential to act as a fertilizer; however, minimal work has been conducted to assess this viability. To address this question, a variety of crop species were grown in a controlled greenhouse environment and fertilized by different effluent dilutions. Plant growth, photosynthetic efficiencies, vegetable production and nutritive qualities of grown vegetables were tested. Initial results indicate that more potent effluent fertilizers fostered higher growth rates, photosynthetic efficiencies, and fruit production rates of several studied plants. Several vitamin levels, including Vitamins A, B, and C, were tested from plant matter grown with varying concentrations of effluent. This work has relevance to farms that are currently producing biogas but are not exploiting the effluent as a potential fertilizer.

Biogas digester effluent as fertilizer for organic farming and its effect on plant growth and vitamin content

2019 Spring National Meeting

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