TY - JOUR

T1 - Coming late for dinner

T2 - Localized digestate depot fertilization for extensive cultivation of marginal soil with Sida hermaphrodita

AU - Nabel, Moritz

AU - Schrey, Sylvia

AU - Poorter, Hendrik

AU - Koller, Robert

AU - Nagel, Kerstin A

AU - Temperton, Victoria Martine

AU - Dietrich, Charlotte C.

AU - Briese, Christoph

AU - Jablonowski, Nicolai D.

N1 - 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.

PY - 2018/7/30

Y1 - 2018/7/30

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - digestate fertilization

KW - localized fertilizer placement

KW - marginal substrate

KW - perennial plants

KW - rhizotron

KW - root plasticity

KW - digestate fertilization

KW - localized fertilizer placement

KW - marginal substrate

KW - perennial plants

KW - rhizotron

KW - root plasticity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85051868898&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3389/fpls.2018.01095

DO - 10.3389/fpls.2018.01095

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 30131816

VL - 9

JO - Frontiers in Plant Science

JF - Frontiers in Plant Science

SN - 1664-462X

M1 - 1095

ER -