Seven years of pig slurry fertilization: impacts on soil chemical properties and the element content of winter barley plants

Intensive pig farming produces large amounts of slurry, which is applied to agricultural soils as fertilizer. A 7-year field study was performed to check the effect of pig slurry on soil properties and on the accumulation of some essential nutrients and heavy metals in a calcareous silty-loam soil (0-0.3 m) and in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) plants in two cropping seasons with contrasting amounts of rainfall. Five fertilization treatments, control (no N applied), mineral fertilizer (90 kg N ha(-1)), and different N doses of pig slurry (146, 281, 534 kg N ha(-1)), were applied at sowing of a barley crop. Organic carbon, available P and K, and total P in soil increased with slurry dose. No differences were found in Co, Cr, Fe, Mn, Ni, and Pb soil concentrations. Slurries increased Cu, Mn, and Zn extractions and plant concentrations of P in straw and Zn in grain. However, the lowest slurry rate was able to maintain the highest grain yields while improving fertility. The results of this research study support the sustainability of pig slurry fertilization at appropriate rates in relation to soil chemical quality.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the Spanish National Institute for Agricultural Research and Experimentation (MINECO-INIA) through the project RTA2017-88-C3-3. The author A. Shakoor received a grant from the University of Lleida for his PhD studies (from 2019 to 2022 period)

Sostenibilidad de la producción porcina en Cataluña (España) : aplicación del análisis multicriterio

La evaluación de la sostenibilidad en modelos de producción porcina en Cataluña (España), mediante el análisis multicriterio, se estructura en dos partes. Una primera de establecimiento del marco de análisis donde, de forma participativa, se fijan los criterios de evaluación, sus indicadores y las escalas de evaluación. En la segunda se implementa la metología expuesta para evaluar la sostenibilidad de tres modelos productivos y detectar posibles conflictos entre los diferentes grupos de interés. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran que desde el punto de vista de la sostenbilidad, en base a los criterios considerados y bajo distintas opciones de robustez, el modelo productivo más sostenible es el ecológico, seguido del familiar y, en último puesto, el del modelo denominado de integración. En cuanto a la formación de coaliciones se observa que hay un importante grupo de actores que apuestan, en primer lugar, por el modelo de integración. Los anteriores resultados avalan la necesidad de potenciar modelos intermedios entre el ecológico y el de integración. Una opción conciliadora, entre las existentes, podría ser el tipo familiar, aplicando algunas mejoras en el manejo si se quieren satisfacer plenamente los requerimientos de sostenibilidad.The sustainability evaluation of pig production systems in Catalonia (Spain) based on multicriteria analysis is divided in two parts. The first part shows the framework of the analysis and the established criteria for the evaluation. The second part applies the developed methodology in order to evaluate the sustainability of three productive systems and also, to find points of conflict between actors and the different options for their understanding. The results show the ecological system as the more sustainable, the second position is for the traditional family farming system and the last one is the integrated system. Nevertheless, a great part of actors supports integrated system. These results indicate the need to find alternative models between the ecological and the integrated ones. The improved family system could be an option in order to fully satisfy sustainable requirements