Browsing by Author "Rummukainen, Hanna"

As the world's population keeps growing, it is vital to focus on efficiency of agriculture. At this moment, food production is happening at the cost of natural resources. Significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus flow in nature as waste and enhance climate change and eutrophication of waters. Nutrient recycling is an essential part of sustainable and responsible agriculture. By combining animal and crop production it is possible to recycle some of the nutrients in an agroecosystem, since manure and other animal waste include nutrients that were given to the feed plants. Meat bone meal (MBM) includes 50 % protein, 35 % ash and 8–12 % fat (NPK 8–5–1). Previous fertilization experiments with MBM have already given promising results. The aim of this study is to find out, if there are significant differences between the fertilization potentials of mineral and MBM fertilizers, and if the dosage of these fertilizers affects the mean yields of malt barley (Hordeum vulgare var. distichon). The fertilization effects of two MBM fertilizers, “Viljo” and “Kana-Viljo”, were compared to mineral fertilizer and chicken manure on malt barley in a field experiment in 2015. Each fertilizer was applied on two nitrogen levels (80 and 160 kg N/ha). The mean yields per hectare and hectolitre weights were compared to the ones given by an unfertilized control member. Although none of the organic fertilizers gave as much improvement in the yield as the mineral fertilizer, all the fertilized yields were significantly bigger than the control member’s. Between the hectolitre weights there was no significant difference and doubling the supply of N did not give significant difference to yields. There was also no interaction between the N supply and the fertilizer type. Applying a lot of N on malt barley increases the quantity of protein in a grain, so the higher N supply may even affect the quality of the yield. The challenge of MBM is its slowly releasing P, so the results on the same field could have been different if the test had been repeated the following year. The used barley Streif is known to be an early cultivar and the field was fertilized just before sowing, so all the N in MBM may not have had enough time to release for the crop to use in this study. It is to be noted that significant results of MBM fertilization were gotten with this little data, it is recommended to keep on researching the potential of MBM as an organic fertilizer.