COPRAS ve MAIRCA Yöntemleriyle Çorum İlinde Kurulabilecek Kompost Tesislerinin Optimallik Sıralaması

The compost product, which is a biologically active substance, emerges as a result of microbial decomposition of organic materials under controlled conditions. This product, which is used for the improvement of soil structure and the development of agricultural products, also offers opportunities in terms of minimizing the damage caused by organic wastes to the environment. It is important to encourage efforts for compost production, especially in terms of both disposal and economic evaluation of wastes generated in animal production farms. Determining the most suitable location of a facility for the utilization of animal wastes as compost, which will be obtained from livestock enterprises scattered in different geographical areas, will be an essential study in terms of minimizing operating costs. For such a facility, it would be an appropriate approach to use multi-criteria decision making methods to choose among predetermined facility location alternatives. In this study, a total of 17 facility location alternatives with 83,163 cattle potential in Çorum province were ranked according to the criteria determined and weighted by means of SWARA method. The optimal ranking of 17 alternatives determined by K-Means clustering analysis was carried out by COPRAS and MAIRCA methods. According to the ranking results obtained from both methods, it was determined that cluster number 6 was in the first rank, cluster number 4 was in the second rank, and cluster number 3 was in the third rank.

Productive and technological characteristics of goat farmers in Comondú, Baja California Sur

To identify productive characteristics through the technological indicators adopted by goats farmers at theComondú municipality, state of Baja California Sur, Mexico. A survey consisting of semi-structured questionswas designed to obtain multi-criteria information on the variables of technological, economic, social, andmultilevel indicators. The production units (PUs) were classified by the cluster analysis of means statisticalmethod in the SAS software, allowing to identify four groups of producers of 10.33, 69, 10.33, and 10.33 % ofthem. The social indicator demonstrated differences between UPs regard their education level, non-inclusionof women in the activity, total annual income, and whether or not they are members of an association. Thetechnological indicator revealed differences in their distance from the UPs to the community, road conditions,area of the UP, available area for planting, water sources, herd size, availability to facilities, machinery, andequipment. The economic indicator showed differences between UPs in their agricultural complementaryactivities, economic dependence, milk production, cheese production, animal wastes, goat production, andtheir respective sales values. The conclusion is that this information is useful for particularly attending to theneeds and will allow defining the precise kind of intervention in the management practices or the requiredmanagement.

Persistant Organic Pollutants in Soil and Its Phytoremediation

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) of soil mainly exhibit toxic characteristics that posses hazard to whole mankind. These toxic pollutants includes several group of compound viz., polychlorinated biphenyls, polybrominated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzofurans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organophosphorus and carbamate insecticides, herbicides and organic fuels, especially gasoline and diesel. They can also be complex mixture of organic chemicals, heavy metals and microbes from septic systems, animal wastes and other sources of organic inputs. Phytoremediation is an emerging technology which can be used for remediation of soil from organic pollutants. In this chapter an attempt has been made to discuss about the sources of organic pollutants, factors that influenced the uptake of organic pollutants by plants, the different mechanism responsible for organic pollutants, phytoremediation of organic pollutants and their advantages and limitation.

Overview of the Benefits and Challenges Associated with Pelletizing Biochar

Biochar can be derived from a wide variety of organic materials including agricultural wastes and residues, animal wastes, municipal solid wastes, pulp and paper mill wastes, and sewage sludge. Its productivity relies on feedstock type and thermochemical conditions of production. Biochar has many application advantages in several fields and has been widely studied in recent years. However, most of these studies are mainly on the powder form of biochar, while its pelleted form is sparsely reported. Even with the reported studies on biochar pellets, there is still lack of knowledge and awareness of the effects of different feedstock on the densification behavior of biochar. The mechanisms of biochar densification, which appear to be sensitive to the conditions predominating during its thermochemical production, are affected by the material from which the biochar is derived. This partly accounts for why biochar pellets have not been widely adopted in various application fields. Therefore, this paper presents an overview of the benefits associated with the use of biochar pellets and discusses the challenges encountered when pelleting biochars that are derived from different feedstock under various carbonization conditions. Research priority areas needed to overcome the challenges are also identified and discussed. The purpose is to contribute to better understanding on biochar pelletization behavior, and to offer insights useful to comprehend some basic principles that may occur in the pelleting process and to ease further and more thorough investigations.

Agronomic Efficiency of Animal-Derived Organic Fertilizers and Their Effects on Biology and Fertility of Soil: A Review

Healthy soils are essential for progressive agronomic activities. Organic fertilization positively affects agro-ecosystems by stimulating plant growth, enhancing crop productivity and fruit quality and improving soil fertility. Soil health and food security are the key elements of Organic Agriculture 3.0. Landfilling and/or open-dumping of animal wastes produced from slaughtering cause environmental pollution by releasing toxic substances, leachate and greenhouse gases. Direct application of animal carcasses to agricultural fields can adversely affect soil microbiota. Effective waste management technologies such as thermal drying, composting, vermicomposting and anaerobic digestion transform animal wastes, making them suitable for soil application by supplying soil high in organic carbon and total nitrogen. Recent agronomic practices applied recycled animal wastes as organic fertilizer in crop production. However, plants may not survive at a high fertilization rate due to the presence of labile carbon fraction in animal wastes. Therefore, dose calculation and determination of fertilizer application frequency are crucial for agronomists. Long-term animal waste-derived organic supplementation promotes copiotrophic microbial abundance due to enhanced substrate affinity, provides micronutrients to soils and protects crops from soil-borne pathogens owing to formation of plant-beneficial microbial consortia. Animal waste-derived organically fertilized soils possess higher urease and acid phosphatase activities. Furthermore, waste to fertilizer conversion is a low-energy requiring process that promotes circular bio-economy. Thus, considering the promotion of soil fertility, microbial abundance, disease protection and economic considerations application of animal-waste-derived organic fertilizer should be the mainstay for sustainable agriculture.