Agriculture
Testing VUNA fertilisers on crops
In VUNA affiliated projects, our fertilisers are being tested in South Africa and Switzerland. At the UKZN Agricultural Engineering Department in Pietermaritzburg, crop scientists fertilised maize in a pot trial with struvite, dehydrated and pasteurised latrine faecal sludge pellets (LaDePa [pdf]) and commercial superphosphate. First results have shown that struvite gave the best results as phosphorus fertilisers on clayey soils, but efficiency strongly depended on soil characteristics. At ETH in Zurich, the Plant Nutrition Group produced isotope-marked struvite and nitrification/distillation product. The tests in ETH's greenhouse have shown that plants assimilate nutrients from VUNA fertilisers at least as readily as from commercial synthetic fertilisers.
Further readings:
Fact-sheet: Odindo, A., Bame, I., Buckley, C. (2013) [pdf] Struvite crop trials. Crop and Soil Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Poster: Nutrient (re)cycling from human urine [pdf]. Christophe Bonvin, MSc candidate, ETH Zürich, Institute of Agriculture Sciences, Group of Plant Nutrition,
General literature on struvite as a fertiliser:
- Antonini, S., Arias, M.A., Eichert, T., Clemens, J. (2012) Greenhouse evaluation and environmental impact assessment of different urine-derived struvite fertilizers as phosphorus sources for plants. Chemosphere 89(10), 1202Ð1210
- Johnston, A.E., Richard, I.R. (2004) [pdf] Effectiveness of different precipitated phosphates as phosphorus sources for plants. Phosphorus Research Bulletin, 15, 52-59.
Research Collaborators
Alfred Odindo: Crop Sciences, UKZN
Astrid Oberson: Plant Nutrient Group, ETHZ
Christophe Bonvin: Plant Nutrient Group, ETHZ