Palm waste charcoal locks in fish-based fertilizer nutrients for crops
Nikhom R, Chimres N, Nikhom S, Siriphan T, Vanichpun A
Soil Health
If you compost or brew your own liquid fertilizer, this shows a cheap charcoal-based trick that stops nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium from washing away before your plants can use them.
Farmers often use liquid fertilizer made from fermented fish waste to feed their plants organically, but the nutrients tend to wash out of the soil quickly. Researchers found that biochar, a charcoal-like material made by baking palm oil plant waste, can soak up and hold onto those nutrients like a sponge. When they tested this nutrient-loaded biochar on Chinese kale, it grew better than plants fed with regular cattle manure, even though it contained less nitrogen than synthetic fertilizer.
Key Findings
EFB biochar's nutrient content rose from 1.48% N, 0.72% P, 1.68% K to 3.18% N, 2.30% P, 3.03% K after soaking in fermented fish-waste fertilizer
Nitrogen adsorption increased with fertilizer concentration and contact time, leveling off around 60 minutes
In pot trials, nutrient-enriched biochar outperformed cattle manure for Chinese kale growth and biomass despite delivering far less nitrogen than urea
chevron_right Technical Summary
Turning palm oil waste into charcoal-like biochar can soak up and hold nutrients from fish-waste fertilizer, cutting down on nutrient loss and helping crops like Chinese kale grow better than with cattle manure.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Enhancing nutrient retention in fermented bio-extract using biochar derived from oil palm empty fruit bunch.
The application of fermented bio-extract (FB) to promote plant growth is increasingly adopted in organic agriculture. However, nutrients in FB are readily lost through leaching, limiting their effe...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Elaeis is a genus of palms, called oil palms, containing two species, native to Africa and the Americas. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil.