The European Commission JRC has renewed a call for study data or publications concerning the agronomic effects of processed manure or fertiliser products recycled from manure. This is part of the DG ENVI “SafeManure” study addressing application limits for recycled fertilisers produced from manure (“processed manure” under the Nitrates Directive). The data must include experimental data (pot or field trials, leaching tests … not only review) comparing processed manure / manure recycled product to mineral fertiliser and to a control.
JRC is interested in any nitrogen-containing material recovered from or processed from any type of animal manure, slurry or litter, with manure only as input material or manure mixed with other materials (minimum c. 10% manure): including e.g. mineral products recovered from manure processing (such as struvite or other precipitated salts containing nitrogen, ammonium salts recovered from biogas …), “mineral concentrates” (from membrane separation), digestate, compost, dried - pelletised – or limed manure or similar, manure ashes / processed ashes, biochars / pyrolysis materials, etc.
Data should address, in conditions relevant for Europe, one or more of the following: nitrogen plant uptake / efficiency / impact on crop yield, and/or nitrogen leaching. For e.g. struvite, data should enable to relate crop yield to nitrogen application (not only to phosphorus). The objective is to compare the agronomic performance and/or potential environmental impacts of the nitrogen present in the processed manure materials to those of mineral nitrogen fertilisers. The mineral fertilisers compared may be the same as the recovered product (e.g. comparison of ammonium sulphate from digester gas stripping with synthetic ammonium sulphate) or may be different (e.g. comparison of synthetic urea with dried manure). Information provided should be in English or and English summary/translation must be provided (e.g. summary and translation of headers of data tables). Full pdfs of literature should be provided.
You can check a list of studies already received by JRC at www.phosphorusplatform.eu/regulatory (under “SafeManure documents”), indicating which studies have been assessed to be useable (24 to date) and which have been rejected (and why).
Please send any relevant data by 10th February 2019 to: (unless data is confidential) and we will forward to the European Commission (JRC).