Agricultural systems often require added phosphorus to achieve optimum crop and livestock production. The application of soil amendments, such as inorganic fertilizers, manure, biosolids, and waste water, can improve soil fertility and help produce optimum crop yields. However, many of these amendments, particularly organic materials such as animal manure, are often applied in excess of crop nu...

Abstract We steered the soil microbiome via applications of organic residues (mix cover crop residues, sewage sludge + compost, and digestate compost) to enhance multiple ecosystem services in line with climate-smart agriculture. Our result highlights potential reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from agricultural soils by application specific amendments (especially compost). Unexpectedly, ...

Portable XRF spectrometry (pXRF) has recently undergone significant technological improvements and is being applied in a wide range of studies. Despite pXRF advantages, this technique rarely been used to characterize organic amendments residues. This article reviews those studies undertaken date which these products. Published show that correctly measures elements such as Fe, Pb, Zn, Mn, Ca, K ...

Biochars are biological residues combusted under low oxygen conditions, resulting in a porous, low density carbon rich material. Their large surface areas and cation exchange capacities, determined to a large extent by source materials and pyrolysis temperatures, enables enhanced sorption of both organic and inorganic contaminants to their surfaces, reducing pollutant mobility when amending con...

Applying amendments to multi-element contaminated soils can have contradictory effects on the mobility, bioavailability and toxicity of specific elements, depending on the amendment. Trace elements and PAHs were monitored in a contaminated soil amended with biochar and greenwaste compost over 60 days field exposure, after which phytotoxicity was assessed by a simple bio-indicator test. Copper a...

Sustainable agriculture, which is characterized by farming profitably while minimizing damage to the environment, is not easy to practice. “Conventional” agriculture in the USA is commonly considered to involve practices that have potential to damage the environment. These include tilling the soil excessively, overapplying readily soluble inorganic fertilizers (“chemical fertilizers”), and over...