Nutrient production from dairy cattle manure and loading on arable land

Objective Along with increasing livestock products via intensive rearing, the accumulation of livestock manure has become a serious issue due to the fact that there is finite land for livestock manure recycling via composting. The nutrients from livestock manure accumulate on agricultural land and the excess disembogues into streams causing eutrophication. In order to systematically manage nutrient loading on agricultural land, quantifying the amount of nutrients according to their respective sources is very important. However, there is a lack of research concerning nutrient loss from livestock manure during composting or storage on farms. Therefore, in the present study we quantified the nutrients from dairy cattle manure that were imparted onto agricultural land. Methods Through investigation of 41 dairy farms, weight reduction and volatile solids (VS), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) changes of dairy cattle manure during the storage and composting periods were analyzed. In order to support the direct investigation and survey on site, the three cases of weight reduction during the storing and composting periods were developed according to i) experiment, ii) reference, and iii) theoretical changes in phosphorus content (ΔP = 0). Results The data revealed the nutrient loading coefficients (NLCs) of VS, TN, and TP on agricultural land were 1.48, 0.60, and 0.66, respectively. These values indicated that the loss of nitrogen and phosphorus was 40% and 34%, respectively, and that there was an increase of VS since bedding materials were mixed with excretion in the barn. Conclusion As result of nutrient-footprint analyses, the amounts of TN and TP particularly entered on arable land have been overestimated if applying the nutrient amount in fresh manure. The NLCs obtained in this study may assist in the development of a database to assess the accurate level of manure nutrient loading on soil and facilitate systematic nutrient management

Nutrient variations from swine manure to agricultural land

Objective Swine manure in Korea is separated into solid and liquid phases which are composted separately and then applied on land. The nutrient accumulation in soil has been a big issue in Korea but the basic investigation about nutrient input on arable land has not been achieved in detail. Within the nutrient production from livestock at the national level, most values are calculated by multiplication of the number of animals with the excreta unit per animal. However, the actual amount of nutrients from swine manure may be totally different with the nutrients applied to soil since livestock breeding systems are not the same with each country. Methods This study investigated 15 farms producing solid compost and 14 farms producing liquid compost. Composting for solid phase used the Turning+Aeration (TA) or Turning (T) only methods, while liquid phase aeration composting was achieved by continuous (CA), intermittent (IA), or no aeration (NA). Three scenarios were constructed for investigating solid compost: i) farm investigation, ii) reference study, and iii) theoretical P changes (ΔP = 0), whereas an experiment for water evaporation was conducted for analyzing liquid compost. Results In farm investigation, weight loss rates of 62% and 63% were obtained for TA and T, respectively, while evaporation rates for liquid compost were 8.75, 7.27, and 5.14 L/m2·d for CA, IA, and NA, respectively. Farm investigation provided with the combined nutrient load (solid+liquid) of VS, N, and P of 117.6, 7.2, and 2.7 kg/head·yr. Nutrient load calculated from farm investigation is about two times higher than the calculated with reference documents. Conclusion The nutrient loading coefficients from one swine (solid+liquid) were (volatile solids, 0.79; nitrogen, 0.53; phosphorus, 0.71) with nutrient loss of 21%, 47%, and 29%, respectively. The nutrient count from livestock manure using the excretion unit has probably been overestimated without consideration of the nutrient loss

Partial Dehydration in Hydrated Tungsten Oxide Nanoplates Leads to Excellent and Robust Bifunctional Oxygen Reduction and Hydrogen Evolution Reactions in Acidic Media

The development of efficient, low-cost, and stable bifunctional catalysts is necessary for renewable energy storage and conversion, but it remains a challenge. Herein, we first report a novel strategy to develop WO3 center dot nH(2)O (n = 0.33, 1.00, or 2.00) as a highly active and durable bifunctional catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acidic media by controlling the degree of hydration. The content of solvated water molecules in WO3 center dot nH(2)O can be precisely controlled by selectively using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid or DL-malic acid for room-temperature precipitation synthesis. Structural flexibility associated with water solvation in WO3 center dot nH(2)O leads to excellent bifunctional catalytic activity as well as durability in acidic media. The bifunctional catalytic mechanism of WO3 center dot nH(2)O is mainly attributed to spontaneous partial dehydration during electrolysis, resulting in simultaneous formation of active phases for HER and ORR, respectively

Effect of a new phosphorus source, magnesium hydrogen phosphate (MHP) on growth, utilization of phosphorus, and physiological responses in carp Cyprinus carpio

Abstract Magnesium hydrogen phosphate (MHP, MgHPO4) recovered from swine manure was prepared as an alternative phosphorus (P) source. Conventional P additives, monocalcium phosphate (MCP), dicalcium phosphate (DCP), and tricalcium phosphate (TCP) were compared with the MHP in terms of growth and P availability by juvenile carp Cyprinus carpio. A basal diet as a negative control was prepared using practical feed ingredients without P supplementation to which four supplemental P sources were added at the level of 2%. Five groups of 450 fish having mean body weight of 6.5 g following 24 h fasting after 2 weeks of adaptation period were randomly distributed into each of 15 tanks (30 fish/tank). Fish were hand-fed to apparent satiety twice a day for 9 weeks. Fish fed the MHP had weight gain (WG), feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), and specific growth rate (SGR) comparable to those fed the MCP. Those values of both the MHP and MCP groups were significantly different (p  0.05) from other phosphate groups, fish fed the MCP and MHP retained higher P in whole body than the other groups. P availability was determined to be 93.2, 62.4, 6.1, and 98.0% for MCP, DCP, TCP, and MHP, respectively. The present results suggested that the MHP recovered from wastewater stream could be used as an alternative P source in carp diet

Incorporation of Unnatural Amino Acids in Response to the AGG Codon

The biological protein synthesis system has been engineered to incorporate unnatural amino acid into proteins, and this has opened up new routes for engineering proteins with novel compositions. While such systems have been successfully applied in research, there remains a need to develop new approaches with respect to the wider application of unnatural amino acids. In this study, we reported a strategy for incorporating unnatural amino acids into proteins by reassigning one of the Arg sense codons, the AGG codon. Using this method, several unnatural amino acids were quantitatively incorporated into the AGG site. Furthermore, we applied the method to multiple AGG sites, and even to tandem AGG sequences. The method developed and described here could be used for engineering proteins with diverse unnatural amino acids, particularly when employed in combination with other methods