Nature Environment and Pollution Technology

P. Latha ¹, P. Thangavel ¹, G. Rajannan ², K. Arulmozhiselvan ³

Affiliations
1 Department of Environmental Sciences, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu, IN
2 Department of Forage Crops, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu, IN
3 Department of Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu, IN

Abstract

Distillery spent wash contains nutrients and organic matter used in agriculture as a source of plant nutrients and irrigation water. Carbon and nitrogen play an important role in increasing the agricultural production. A laboratory incubation experiment was carried out to study the different concentrations of distillery spent wash on soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics. The treatments consisted of T₁-Soil alone, T₂-Spent wash @ 20 kilo L ha^-1, T₃- Spent wash @ 40 kilo L ha^-1, T₄-Spent wash @ 60 kilo L ha^-1, T₅-Spent wash @ 80 kilo L ha^-1 and T₆-Spent wash @ 100 kilo L ha^-1. Among the different levels, the amounts of NH₄-N, NO₃-N and carbon were greater in soil that received 100 kilo L of spent wash compared to soil alone. Results shown that application of spent wash not only adds mineral N and carbon to soil, but also promotes the mineralization of soil organic C and N, thus resulting in large amounts of carbon, NH₄-N and NO₃-N in soil.

Keywords

Distillery Spent Wash, Mineralization, Nutrients, Red Soil.

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