Biochar and manure can trap antibiotic pollution in salty soils
Chen R, Yao R, Chen Y, Zhou Y
Soil Health
If you garden near farmland or use manure-based compost, this points to a low-cost soil amendment that can bind up antibiotic residues before they reach your vegetables or the water table.
Farm soils sometimes end up with leftover antibiotics from livestock manure, and salty, alkaline soil makes those antibiotics even more available to plants and organisms. Researchers found that mixing in biochar or pig manure changes the soil chemistry so the antibiotics get bound up tightly instead of floating around freely. After two months, the right dose of biochar cut the availability of one antibiotic by over 80%, showing a practical way to clean up contaminated farmland.
Key Findings
2% biochar reduced oxytetracycline bioavailability by 50.34% after 7 days, but higher doses backfired and increased it.
Under rising soil salinity (up to 7 g/kg), 2% biochar limited oxytetracycline bioavailability increase to 39.40% reduction and capped sulfamethoxazole increase at just 3.83%.
After 60 days, 2% biochar cut oxytetracycline and sulfamethoxazole bioavailability by 83.03% and 65.21%, while 2% pig manure achieved 50.47% and 60.42% reductions respectively.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Adding biochar or pig manure to salty, antibiotic-contaminated soil can lock those drug residues into forms plants and microbes can't easily absorb, cutting their bioavailability by up to 83% within two months.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
The effect of soil amendments on the occurrence forms and bioavailability of antibiotics in saline-alkali soil.
Antibiotic contamination in soil and soil salinization are both hot issues in environmental research. Amendments can modify the physicochemical properties of saline-alkali soil, thus affecting the ...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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