2 results for group: stephen-hillier


Assessing biogas digestate, pot ale, wood ash and rockdust as soil amendments: effects on soil chemistry and microbial community composition

Atefeh Ramezanian,A. Sigrun Dahlin,Colin D. Campbell,Stephen Hillier &Ingrid Öborn Abstract Applying by-products as soil amendments to agricultural systems is growing in popularity. We aimed to assess the efficacy of some contemporary by-products to provide nutrients to crops as well as the potential harm of adding toxic elements to the environment. Four different by-products widely available in Northern Europe were tested for their effects on two nutrient-poor agricultural soils in terms of increasing available macro- and micro-nutrients as well as toxic elements. Assessing soil microbial community as a sensitive tool for evaluating soil ...

Addition of a volcanic rockdust to soils has no observable effects on plant yield and nutrient status or on soil microbial activity

Atefeh Ramezanian, A. Sigrun Dahlin, Colin D. Campbell, Stephen Hillier, Birgitta Mannerstedt-Fogelfors & Ingrid Öborn Abstract Rising costs and pressure on supplies of commercial mineral fertilizers and increasing markets for organically produced foods and feeds have led to a growing interest in soil amendments to supply plant nutrients. Rockdust is a by-product of quarrying and its effectiveness to supply plants with nutrients has been a contested issue and there have been no assessments of its effect on soil biota other than plants. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of a commercially-available volcanic rockdust application on ...