Date of Award
12-13-2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Agriculture, MSA
First Advisor
Steven Green
Committee Members
Calvin Shumway; Jennifer Bouldin
Call Number
LD 251 .A566t 2010 A89
Abstract
Increasing concern over the depleting fossil fuels and rising costs of chemical fertilizers have stimulated the need to find alternative crop biomass production through regionally available fertilizer sources. A field experiment was conducted to determine high biomass sorghum [(Sorghum bicolor (Moench) L.) dry matter yield, and N uptake due to application of urea, pelleted poultry litter, and class A municipal biosolids in two cropping systems of biomass sorghum and nitrogen use efficiencies of these three nutrient sources in northeast Arkansas in 2009. While urea, pelleted poultry litter, and class A municipal biosolids produced average high biomass sorghum dry matter yield of 23.13 Mg ha-1, 24.36 Mg ha-1 , and 21.79 Mg ha-1 respectively, they were not statistically different from each other, but all three nutrient sources produced significantly greater sorghum biomass than the control. Urea produced significantly taller high biomass sorghum plants (4.41 m) than class A municipal biosolids (3.98 m) and control (3.45 m), but were not different than pelleted poultry litter (4.27 m) statistically. The sorghum plants removed 110 Kg N ha-1 from pelleted poultry litter, which was not different statistically than class A municipal biosolids (107 Kg N ha-1), while N removed in high biomass sorghum was significantly greatest in urea treatment (153 Kg N ha-1). Partial factor productivity (PFP, Kg biomass yield Kg-1 N) of the nutrient sources ranged from 158 to187 and agronomic efficiency (AE, Kg increase in biomass Kg-1 N) ranged from 24 to 63. Urea had the greatest partial nutrient balance (PNB) (11.40 Kg N removed Kg-1 N) among all nutrient sources and the apparent recovery efficiency (RE, increase in Kg N removed Kg-1 N) of three nutrient sources ranged from 0.32 to 0.43. Significant positive correlations were observed among biomass sorghum dry matter yield, plant height, N uptake, PFP, AE, PNB, and RE. Pelleted poultry litter and municipal class A biosolids are viable sources of N in high biomass sorghum production in Northeast Arkansas.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Awale, Rakesh, "Performance of high biomass sorghum and nitrogen dynamics by the application of urea, pelleted poultry litter, and class A municipal biosolids" (2010). Student Theses and Dissertations. 962.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/962
