Organic Fertilizer

Poultry Waste Specialization

BioStar’s technology found its roots at the West Virginia Department of Agriculture Poultry Waste Energy Recovery POWER Project. BioStar’s CTO Dennis Crabtree designed, constructed and operated the POWER Project for five years. This expertise in poultry waste management and BioStar’s engineered anaerobic digestion systems deliver an excellent feedstock for the production of premium grade organic fertilizers, typically with a natural NPK value of 5-5-4.

Poultry manure is generally considered the most valuable of animal manures for use as a fertilizer. Poultry manure contains large amounts of N, P, and K as well as secondary and trace elements, e.g. substantial quantities of B, Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, S, and Zn.

However, manure contains many salts that are included in the feed ration or consumed in the water. Heavy application of manure can increase the accumulation of soluble salts in the soil (i.e. its salinity), and these must be leached from the crop root zone, normally through under-drainage to avoid crop “burning” and substantial yield reduction. During the anaerobic digestion process, water-soluble salts are dissolved into the aqueous solution. Here they are evenly distributed, and only approximately 30% of the solution accompanies the coarser fraction ("biosolids") after separation. Hence, these solids have a lower salt content than the original manure, the rest being concentrated in the liquid fraction.

Organic Fertilizer Benefits

Properly applied, organic fertilizers can improve the health and productivity of soil and plants, as they provide essential nutrients to encourage plant growth. Organic nutrients increase the abundance of soil organisms by providing organic matter and micronutrients for organisms, such as fungal mycorrhiza, which aid plants in absorbing nutrients. The organic matter benefits crop production via increases in soil water-holding capacity, water infiltration rates, cation exchange capacity, structural stability, and soil tilth. Whereas, chemical fertilizers may have a long-term adverse impact on the organisms living in soil and a detrimental long-term effect on soil productivity.

The digestion process converts organic nitrogen into a mineralized form (ammonia or nitrate nitrogen) that can be taken up more quickly by plants than organic nitrogen. Timing of the plant uptake of ammonia and nitrate nitrogen is more predictable than the plant uptake of organic nitrogen from raw manure.

Nitrogen can be lost during digestion only by reduction of nitrates to nitrogen gas and volatilization of ammonia into the biogas. Since there is very little nitrate present in manure, such loss through reduction is insignificant. Loss of nitrogen through volatilization of ammonia can occur from the slurry if not handled correctly.

Since organic matter is degraded during digestion to produce biogas, the percentage of nitrogen in the slurry rises, compared with solid content. Nitrogen is conserved during anaerobic digestion. For example, a 23% reduction in total solids concentration is accompanied by a corresponding increase in the nitrogen content of the remaining solids.

Organic fertilizer also provides disease suppression characteristics that fight off bacterial diseases by acting similar to a fungicide. This disease suppression and the fact that you are enriching the soil with each application will result in less need for the use of synthetic chemical fungicides.

Number 1 Soybean Producer

Kip Cullers, the number 1 yield producing soybean producer in the U.S. does a lot of things right to get the 3 times the average yield of other soybean growers. One of which includes using chicken waste as his means of fertilizer. Poultry litter and manure have increased yields in many different crops including Bermuda grass, corn, fescue, orchard grass, rice, and wheat.

Growth in Organic Farming

The U.S. is seeing growing trend towards organic foods and organic farming due to the increased health benefits. Organizations like Whole Foods Market and the Organic Center are increasing awareness and benefits of organic farming. The organic food market in the United States has grown at a rate of 20% per year for the last ten years.

Food Safety

Food safety is a major concern. The use of organic fertilizers ensures the food consumed has only items that are found in nature. Listed by the Organic Materials Review Board and monitored by the Organic Consumer’s Association which communicates potential food safety issues organic growers and producers of organic fertilizers are held accountable.

BioStar technology produces organic fertilizer that exceeds, by orders of magnitude, the USEPA’s “Exceptional Quality” requirements for pathogen destruction. Biosolids which meet USEPA “Exceptional Quality” standards can be transported and land applied without permit or regulatory oversight.

Slow-Release

The biosolids remaining after anaerobic digestion contain higher concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and trace elements than raw manure. Also the nitrogen in the biosolids is in a mineralized form (ammonium or nitrate) rather than the organic form, making it more readily available to plants, much like commercial fertilizers.

By their nature, organic fertilizers provide increased physical and biological storage mechanisms to soils, mitigating risks of over-fertilization. Organic fertilizer nutrient content, solubility, and nutrient release rates are typically much lower than mineral (inorganic) fertilizers.

One study found that over a 140-day period, after 7 leachings:

Organic fertilizers work by breaking down microbial activity, to a lesser extent by moisture. This naturally promotes a “time-release” benefit, which feeds the plants for 8 – 10 weeks. What’s especially beneficial is that organic lawn fertilizer materials break down at rates that correlate with the times when lawns need them most. When the soil warms in spring and rain increases, organic fertilizer breaks down faster. That’s also when grass growth increases and fertilizer needs go up. But when the rains shut off in summer and soil microbe activity slows in heat and drought, grass growth slows and nutrition demands go down. Those same conditions in turn slow the breakdown of organic fertilizers. This allows organic fertilizers to be applied at any time.

Improved Nutrient Manageability

Anaerobic digestion of poultry waste results in nitrogen mineralization, reducing or eliminating the environmentally harmful effects of ammonia (NH3) odors and nitrate leaching. 30 - 50% of the nitrogen in raw manure is in the organic form and the rest in the ammonia form. Ammonia can be converted to nitrate for plant uptake, while some plants may use ammonia directly. Use of ammonia for plant fertilization is well known and predictable. Organic N must be freed from organic molecules (mineralized) into soil solution to be either used by plants or converted for use. Mineralization occurs when the soil is not frozen. A problem can arise when organic N is mineralized in the spring and fall when soils are unfrozen, but minimal plant growth is occurring. Mineralized N can be converted to nitrate and leached from the soil when plants are unable to take it up, contributing to ground water pollution.

Anaerobic digestion converts much of the organic N into ammonia yielding an effluent with 60 - 80% ammonia. Ammonia availability is a predictable fertilizer, whereas organic N availability is unpredictable. The higher the percentage of N in the ammonia form, the less uncontrolled release of N from organic compounds to the soil. To maximize the benefit of manure fertilization and minimize leaching losses, ammonia is preferred.

Odorless

BioStar’s technology is designed for the optimal digestion time to maximize biogas output and pathogen destruction, as we continue to break down the volatile solids in the waste stream; this in turn can significantly reduce the quantity of post-digestion stabilized solids available for fertilizer production. In fact, it is typical for the total fertilizer output in BioStar’s plant to be 30 – 50% less than applications utilizing shorter digestion times. This strategy addresses one of the key problems that has plagued the organic fertilizer market from the outset, that being odor. Extended digestion time may require additional digestion capacity, but in the long term the maximum energy is produced and a premium “odorless” organic fertilizer is delivered.

Anaerobic digesters consume odor-causing compounds in manure as it moves through the digester, reducing odor problems (note that odors will still exist at normal levels until the manure enters the digester). One study, as reported in Philip Lusk, “Methane Recovery from Animal Manures: The Current Opportunities Casebook,” Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Lab (DOE/NREL), 1998, showed that anaerobic digestion reduced odor by 97 percent over fresh manure. For some projects, odor control is a primary reason for installing a digester,

Consistent Granulation

BioStar’s fertilizer granulation process includes a patented A.J. Sackett system for granulating organic solids. The A.J. Sackett & Sons Company has been designing and manufacturing bulk material systems since 1897. The end result is a premium organic fertilizer that is of consistent granulation, odorless, dustless and pathogen-free.

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