• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.31-37
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• 2010

Livestock manures have a potential to be a valuable resource with an efficient treatment. In Korea, 42 million tons of livestock manure were generated in 2008, and 84 % of them were used for compost and liquid fertilizer production. Recently recycling of livestock manure for biogas production through anaerobic digestion is increasing, but its utilization in agriculture is still uncertified. In this study, there was applied co-digestate to the paddy for rice cultivation based on N supplement. Co-digestate was fertilizer fermented with pig slurry and food waste combined with the ratio of 70:30(v:v) in its volumetric basis. For assessing the safety of co-digestate, it was monitored the contents of co-digestate for seasonal variation, resulted in no potential harm to the soil and plant by heavy metals. The results showed that soil applied with co-digestate was increased in exchangeable potassium, copper and zinc mainly due to the high rate of pig slurry in co-digestate applied. Considering high salt content due to the combination with food waste, strict quality assurances are needed for safe application to arable land though it has valuable fertilizer nutrient. Leachate after treatment showed that the concentration of nitrate nitrogen washed out within two weeks. Considering the salt accumulation results in soil, it is highly recommended that the application rate of co-digestate should not exceed the crop fertilization rate based on N supplement. With these results, it was concluded that co-digestate could be used as an alternative fertilizer for chemical fertilizer. More study is needed for the long-term effects of co-digestate application on the soil and water environment.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.71-78
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• 2000

Preferential flow has recently been the subject of increasing interest because these phenomena contribute to solute transport in soils. Commonly, preferential flow paths are associated with macropores or highly structured soils. We presented an analysis of the measured breakthrough curves (BTCs) of $Cl^-$ and $Cu^{2+}$ ions to test the occurrence of preferential flow in soils using miscible displacement technique under steady flow conditions. We also analyzed soil water retention curves and from this curves induced cumulative pore size distribution of undisturbed soils, which sampled from Ap1, B1, and C horizons of Songjeong series soils (the fine loamy, mesic family of Typic Hapludults). In this study, miscible displacement experiment on C horizon was excluded, because it is structureless sandy loam with saturated hydraulic conductivity of $5.2cmhr^{-1}$. The saturated hydraulic conductivity of Ap1 horizon was $2.0cmhr^{-1}$, which was about 7 times higher than that of B1 horizon ($0.27cm hr^{-1}$). Cumulative pore size distribution predicted that Ap1 horizon had more macropores (pore diameter larger than $49{\mu}m$, equivalent to -6 kpa of soil matric potential) than B1 horizon. The hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient from chloride BTCs was estimated as $1.3cm^2hr^{-1}$ for B1 and $34cm^2hr^{-1}$ for Ap1 horizon. However the retardation factors of B1 and Ap1 horizon were significantly different, i.e. 1 and 0.6, respectively, which means that there was distinct partition between mobile water and immobile phase in Ap1 horizon. The copper retardation effect of Ap1 horizon was less than that of B1 horizon, even though cation exchange capacity of Ap1 horizon was higher than that of B1 horizon. Thus, breakthrough curves of $Cl^-$ and $Cu^{2+}$ obviously showed the probability that preferential flow would occur in Ap1 horizon.