1. //
  2. Start
  3. //
  4. Publications
  5. //
  6. Coming late for dinner
  7. //

Coming late for dinner: Localized digestate depot fertilization for extensive cultivation of marginal soil with Sida hermaphrodita

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Authors

  • Moritz Nabel
  • Sylvia Schrey
  • Hendrik Poorter
  • Robert Koller
  • Kerstin A Nagel
  • Victoria Martine Temperton
  • Charlotte C. Dietrich
  • Christoph Briese
  • Nicolai D. Jablonowski
Improving fertility of marginal soils for the sustainable production of biomass is a strategy for reducing land use conflicts between food and energy crops. Digestates can be used as fertilizer and for soil amelioration. In order to promote plant growth and reduce potential adverse effects on roots because of broadcast digestate fertilization, we propose to apply local digestate depots placed into the rhizosphere. We grew Sida hermaphrodita in large mesocosms outdoors for three growing seasons and in rhizotrons in the greenhouse for 3 months both filled with marginal substrate, including multiple sampling dates. We compared digestate broadcast application with digestate depot fertilization and a mineral fertilizer control. We show that depot fertilization promotes a deep reaching root system of S. hermaphrodita seedlings followed by the formation of a dense root cluster around the depot-fertilized zone, resulting in a fivefold increased biomass yield. Temporal adverse effects on root growth were linked to high initial concentrations of ammonium and nitrite in the rhizosphere in either fertilizer application, followed by a high biomass increase after its microbial conversion to nitrate. We conclude that digestate depot fertilization can contribute to an improved cultivation of perennial energy-crops on marginal soils.
Original languageEnglish
Article number1095
JournalFrontiers in Plant Science
Volume9
Number of pages14
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30.07.2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study conducted at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, IBG 2: Plant Sciences was institutional funded by the Helmholtz Association (POFIII, Key Technologies for the Bioeconomy). Part of this work was supported by the German Plant-Phenotyping Network (DPPN), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, FKZ: 031A053).

Funding Information:
The digestate and the sand were kindly provided by ADRW Naturpower GmbH and Co. Kg, Ameln, and Rheinische Baustoffwerke, Inden, respectively. The kind provision of the bins by EGN mbH, Viersen, used as mesocosms for plant cultivation is highly appreciated. Many thanks to Lucy Harrison, Marlene Müller, Edelgard Schölgens, Sabine Willbold, and colleagues from ZEA-3 for the maintenance, sampling, and chemical analysis of the plant and soil samples. We thank Andre Schallenberg for the help of setting up and harvesting of the mesocosm experiment. We thank Benedikt Janssen and Tim Schiffer for the technical support with the phenotyping infrastructure and Alexander Putz for providing the drawing of the image station of GrowScreen-Rhizo2. We highly acknowledge the financial support of numerous students’ apprentices by the DAAD and IAESTE program, providing great support for this experiment. We thank the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve this manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Nabel, Schrey, Poorter, Koller, Nagel, Temperton, Dietrich, Briese and Jablonowski.

    Research areas

  • Ecosystems Research - digestate fertilization, localized fertilizer placement, marginal substrate, perennial plants, rhizotron, root plasticity

Related by journal

Two-way NxP fertilisation experiment on barley (Hordeum vulgare) reveals shift from additive to synergistic N-P interactions at critical phosphorus fertilisation level

Clayton, J., Lemanski, K., Solbach, M. D., Temperton, V. M. & Bonkowski, M., 05.03.2024, In: Frontiers in Plant Science. 15, 12 p., 1346729.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Call for Participation: Collaborative Benchmarking of Functional-Structural Root Architecture Models. The Case of Root Water Uptake

Schnepf, A., Black, C. K., Couvreur, V., Delory, B. M., Doussan, C., Koch, A., Koch, T., Javaux, M., Landl, M., Leitner, D., Lobet, G., Mai, T. H., Meunier, F., Petrich, L., Postma, J. A., Priesack, E., Schmidt, V., Vanderborght, J., Vereecken, H. & Weber, M., 31.03.2020, In: Frontiers in Plant Science. 11, 21 p., 316.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Legume intercropping with the bioenergy crop sida hermaphrodita on marginal soil

Nabel, M., Schrey, S. D., Temperton, V. M., Harrison, L. & Jablonowski, N. D., 02.07.2018, In: Frontiers in Plant Science. 9, 9 p., 905.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Precrop functional group identity affects yield of winter barley but less so high carbon amendments in a mesocosm experiment

van Duijnen, R., Roy, J., Härdtle, W. & Temperton, V. M., 03.07.2018, In: Frontiers in Plant Science. 9, 12 p., 912.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Bryophytes and organic layers control uptake of airborne nitrogen in low-N environments

Bähring, A., Fichtner, A., Friedrich, U., Von Oheimb, G. & Härdtle, W., 04.12.2017, In: Frontiers in Plant Science. 8, 12 p., 2080.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Other publications by the same author(s)

Biodiversity on old permanent versus restored grassland is driven by small-scale land-use intensity and habitat connectivity

Ernst, L. M., Thiele, J., Dieker, P., Temperton, V. M. & Dauber, J., 05.2025, In: Restoration Ecology. 33, 4, 15 p., e70029.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Exploring priority and year effects on plant diversity, productivity and vertical root distribution: first insights from a grassland field experiment

Alonso-Crespo, I. M., Temperton, V., Fichtner, A., Niemeyer, T., Schloter, M. & Delory, B., 03.2025, In: Journal of Vegetation Science. 36, 2, 41 p., e70026.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Germination changes can restructure communities through priority effects

Temperton, V. M., 05.2025, In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 40, 5, p. 426-427 2 p.

Research output: Journal contributions › Comments / Debate / Reports › Research

How to promote spider diversity of heathlands: impact of management intensity

Matevski, D., Temperton, V. M., Walmsley, D., Haerdtle, W., Daniels, J. & Boutaud, E., 04.2025, In: Biodiversity and Conservation. 34, p. 1057-1070 14 p.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Proposing a social-ecological framework for successful grassland restoration in Germany—an overview and insights from the Grassworks project

Temperton, V. M., Pătru-Dușe, I. A., Twerski, A., Laeseke, P., Neudert, R., Cebrián-Piqueras, M. A., Romero, M. P., Bauer, M., Beckmann, V., Fischer, J., Gray, K., Härdtle, W., Kollmann, J., Kuhn, L., Laschke, C. J., Loos, J., Lutz, L., May, F., Meyer, M., Martin-Lopez, B., Riechers, M., Ptacek, M., Seifert, D., Schmidt, A., Sturm, L., Thiele, J., Tischew, S., Unseld, L., Venus, T., Wiesmeier, M. & Kirmer, A., 2025, (Accepted/In press) In: Restoration Ecology. 15 p., e70109.

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Working time preferences and early and late retirement intentions
  2. The effect of voters’ economic perception, Brexit and campaigns on the evaluation of party leaders over time
  3. Die Landung
  4. Ordo-Responsibility
  5. Extensive Margins of Imports and Profitability
  6. Complexity cost management
  7. Characterization of dissimilar friction stir welded lap joints of AA5083 and GL D36 steel
  8. Who is responsible for corruption?
  9. Bo-NO-bouba-kiki
  10. Attention and Information Acquisition
  11. Taxonomic and functional changes in mountain meadow communities four years after transplantation to a lowland environment
  12. A stakeholder theory perspective on business models: Value creation for sustainability
  13. Web-Based and Mobile Stress Management Intervention for Employees
  14. Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement in Unternehmen
  15. The Serious and the Mundane
  16. A Cross-Industry Analysis of the Spillover Effect in Paid Search Advertising
  17. Students’ genre expectations and the effects of text cohesion on reading comprehension
  18. Mexican school students’ perceptions of inclusion
  19. Teaching about sustainability through inquiry-based science in Irish primary classrooms
  20. Correction to
  21. Human-nature connectedness as leverage point
  22. Beyond the Supply Chain – Sustainability-Oriented Product Innovations through a Transdisciplinary Approach
  23. Arbeitskampf
  24. Ökologieorientiertes Management
  25. The affective relevance of suggestion-focused and problem-focused voice
  26. “What is a ‘very severe cyclone’ please”? Uncovering knowledge and communication gaps in climate resilience realities
  27. Toward “hardened” accountability?
  28. Can the velocity profile in the bench press and the bench pull sufficiently estimate the one repetition maximum in youth elite cross-country ski and biathlon athletes?
  29. Swiss Adolescents' Career Aspirations: Influence of Context, Age, and Career Adaptability