Effects of treated poultry litter on potential greenhouse gas emission and field agronomic performance

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of different treatments of poultry faecal waste on potential greenhouse gas emission and inherent agronomic potentials. Sugar solution at 100g/l salt solution at 350g/l and oven-drying were the various faecal treatments examined using a completely randomized design. The experiment was conducted for eight weeks. Salt treatment had significantly lower nitrogen content (1.70%; p<0.05), and highest nitrogen depletion percentage (1.34%; p<0.05) while sugar treatment showed superiority in nitrogen trapping tendency, with depletion rate of -0.6%. Moisture content tends to increase significantly in sugar treatment (86.67%; p<0.05) and lowest with samples oven-dried (57.33%; p<0.05). Sugar treatment had a mildly acidic pH of 5.66, which was significantly lower (p<0.05) than was observed in Salt treatment (6.35). Salt treatment increased in weight over the 8weeks in storage (2.52kg, p<0.05), Sugar treatment weighed 2.28kg, heavier than oven-dried and control treatments (p<0.05), largely due to the process of fermentation. Baseline microbial assay studies shows no difference (p>0.05) in microbial count across all treatments, as was observed up till the 8^th week. By the 4^th week oven-dried faeces was lower (p<0.05) in fungal count (0.33×10³cfu/ml) compared to other treatments, and completely devoid of Fungi by the end of the 8^th week. On agronomic performance test, maize planted using sugar treatments had a 40% germination percentage (GP) after two weeks, oven-dry treatment and the control had mean GP of 65% and 75% respectively. The Sorghum plot attained 100% GP with the control and oven-dry treatments, sugar treatment recorded 88% GP. In both cases, germination was nil on salt treatment. By the third week ending, maize stands on control treatment were averagely 48cm tall, 19cm on oven-dried treatment and10cm on sugar treated pots. This trend persisted on sorghum plots with oven-dry treatment showing superiority to other treatments, averaging a plant height of 28cm after 21days.

Key Words: Sugar, Salt, Oven-drying, Germination, Faecal waste, Fungal count