The Role of Poultry Manure Slurry from Biogas in Growing Barley

This study highlights about role of poultry manure slurry from biogas in growing barley. Manure slurry, a by-product of biogas production generated from anaerobic digestion of animal waste and crop residues, is often considered a substitute to reduce mineral fertilizer input. Being a cheap source of organic matter and plant nutrients, its application may improve soil fertility and yield quality and quantity. The accumulation of raw poultry residues in enormous quantities causes the release of odors and the leakage of toxic elements into the surface and groundwater, which negatively affects human health and the environment. So the bioreactor named the fixed-dome model as an anaerobic digester was designed and installed in the poultry field at the agricultural advisory office of college of agriculture at the University of Basra in Karmat-Ali, Iraq. Anaerobic organic fertilizer produced from anaerobic digestion pathway when raw poultry manure was fermented an aerobically for 56 days in the designed bioreactor, to study the use efficiency for anaerobic produced organic fertilizer and raw poultry manure when added at 150Kg N ha-1 at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 % of the recommended dose which was equal to a chemical recommendation for nitrogen as urea fertilizer while P and K were applied in a field experiment as traditional fertilizers as superphosphate and potassium sulfate respectively) to grow barley plants Hordeum vulgare L. Results showed that doses at 100% of anaerobic organic fertilizer were produced in the bioreactor with a significant increase in plant growth parameters as plant height, dry weight of shoot and amounts and their uptake of N and P elements in plants within 60 days of planting as compared to the rest treatments, so the biogas technology for the production of anaerobic organic fertilizer can help partly or mainly to reduce amounts of traditional doses of fertilizer. Anaerobic digestion has a major beneficial function in enhancing the availability and quality of nutrients like N and P in soil and promoting plant growth. However, it can be mostly or partially replaced by chemical fertilizers that are added to the soil, such as urea and superphosphate.