11 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2023
    1. lone bio from Sydney Australia building a Next Generation fertilizer but it's not a fertilizer at 00:18:39 all actually it's mushrooms and when you plant these mushrooms with soybeans not only do you get crop yields to increase not only do you double the amount of CO2 that's being sequestered well you don't use the nitrogen that you're getting in 00:18:53 fertilizer

      !- fertilizer innovation : non nitrogen - mushroom and soybean

    2. fertilizer use one of these boundaries that are today overloading and causing dead zones pollutants also 00:06:38 greenhouse gas massive implications on water quality and coastal zones we quantify here at the global level the maximum allowed loading of reactive nitrogen and reactive phosphorus used 00:06:50 predominantly in fertilizer systems

      !- Fourth boundary : fertilizer

  2. Jun 2022
    1. Sewage sludge is commonly used on agricultural land as a sustainable and renewable source of fertiliser throughout European countries, in part due to EU directives that promote the diverting of sewage sludge away from landfill and incineration and towards energy production and agriculture.

      This EU directive led to the spread of the unintended consequence.

    2. the team estimate that microplastics removed from raw sewage at wastewater treatment plants go on to make up roughly 1% of the weight of sewage sludge, which is commonly used as a fertiliser on farms across Europe.

      This case illustrates the potential unintended consequences from attempting to do good.

      This is a classic example of how progress traps occur.

      Capturing nutrients in waste water closes a nutrient waste loop and seems a good example of applying circular economy thinking.

      HOWEVER, at the time the decision was made to process sewage sludge into fertilizer ignored the relationship of sludge to microplastics was unknown or insufficiently explored. After the decision was made, the practice was adopted across many countries in the EU. After years of practice, the new knowledge reveals that there has been years of silent microplastic contamination. To fix the solution will require another solution, perhaps even more complex..

      This illustrates the danger of applying circular economy techniques when the waste stream is not fully characterized.

  3. Mar 2022
    1. Huge amounts of natural gas are needed to produce ammonia, the key ingredient in nitrogen fertiliser. Yara International relies on vast quantities of Russian gas for its European plants.

      Climate change impacts of fertilizer production

    2. quarter of the key nutrients used in European food production come from Russia.

      Sorld is dangerously dependent on an aggressor nation’s supply of fertilizer.

    3. Russia also produces enormous amounts of nutrients, like potash and phosphate - key ingredients in fertilisers, which enable plants and crops to grow. "Half the world's population gets food as a result of fertilisers... and if that's removed from the field for some crops, [the yield] will drop by 50%," Mr Holsether said.

      Geopolitical vulnerability of the existing dependency on Russian fertilizer.

  4. Apr 2021
  5. May 2016
    1. Are these really alternatives to fertilizers? I think not. Although these adaptations may help improve nutrient use efficiency of crops (that amount of the nutrient pool in the soil that crops take up), aside from legume nodules they fail as fertilizer alternatives due to conservation of mass, which here can be stated as “nutrients exported from a field must be replaced by an equal import of nutrients.” Nutrients are not created in the field through any mechanism, natural or not. Even nitrogen from legumes is imported from the air. None of these so-called alternatives to synthetic fertilizers create nutrients. They exist to help plants survive (not thrive) in the nutrient limited conditions found in natural ecosystems. Since farmers strive to eliminate such nutrient limitations in their fields, these mechanisms are not so helpful, and they are often switched off when high levels of nutrients are available.
  6. Apr 2016
    1. Manure markets tend to be highly localized. In some areas, manure carries enough value as fertilizer that crop producers are willing to pay to receive it; in other areas, livestock producers must pay other farmers to take the manure. About 20 percent of the dairy and hog manure that is removed from farms is sold, as is 36 percent of broiler litter.17 About 60 percent of the hog and broiler manure that is removed from farms is given away for no exchange of money. Prices for manure are determined by the quantities produced in an area relative to the amount of nearby cropland, the mix of crops grown, and the cost of transporting manure. With production shifting to large livestock operations, which are coming under increasing pressure to reduce nutrient applications to their own land, we can expect to see increased manure removals
    1. Conclusions liquid hog manure application was the largest user of energy in this study, mainly due to fuel consumption the most energy efficient system in this study was the grazing system with no manure applied grazing systems were more energy efficient than hayed systems beef production on unmanured land was more energy efficient than on manured land however, beef production on manured land is still more efficient than beef production on land where synthetic fertilizers are applied, even if manure is applied only to P-removal rates