AF Bouwman

C Chang

DF McCrory

EG Beauchamp

H Junninen

J Dijkstra

J Guo

J Laubach

J Moncrieff

J Pereira

JK Whalen

L Dong

M Kithome

MA Sutton

N Li

OT Denmead

R Carew

R Leuning

RW Todd

S Husted

S Manzoni

SG Sommer

SL Dean

SO Petersen

TG Sommerfeldt

TK Flesch

X Hao

Y Shi

Z Loh

ZL He

Scientific Reports

AbstractIn open beef feedlot systems, more than 50% of dietary nitrogen (N) is lost as ammonia (NH3). Here we report an effective and economically-viable method to mitigate NH3 emissions by the application of lignite. We constructed two cattle pens (20 × 20 m) to determine the effectiveness of lignite in reducing NH3 emissions. Twenty-four steers were fed identical commercial rations in each pen. The treatment pen surface was dressed with 4.5 kg m−2 lignite dry mass while no lignite was applied in the control pen. We measured volatilised NH3 concentrations using Ecotech EC9842 NH3 analysers in conjunction with a mass balance method to calculate NH3 fluxes. Application of lignite decreased NH3 loss from the pen by approximately 66%. The cumulative NH3 losses were 6.26 and 2.13 kg N head−1 in the control and lignite treatment, respectively. In addition to the environmental benefits of reduced NH3 losses, the value of retained N nutrient in the lignite treated manure is more than $37 AUD head−1 yr−1, based on the current fertiliser cost and estimated cost of lignite application. We show that lignite application is a cost-effective method to reduce NH3 loss from cattle feedlots.</jats:p

Deli Chen

Jianlei Sun

Mei Bai

Kithsiri B. Dassanayake

Owen T. Denmead

Julian Hill

Crossref

A new cost-effective method to mitigate ammonia loss from intensive cattle feedlots: application of lignite

A new cost-effective method to mitigate ammonia loss from intensive cattle feedlots: application of lignite

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