I mesured ash content for samples of poultry litter, I was wondering if there was a sort of correlation orany relation between ash and phosphorus or any other mineral or even other factor.
Poultry litter consists of organic and inorganic matter and on ashing, all forms of organic matter are oxidised producing CO2. The remaining ash contains inorganic solid elements with oxide forms including P as P205 and other metallic oxides. So, it is expected that on through analysis of ash composition along with ash content, there might have some correlations between and among ash content and different minerals.
Thanks for your answer, but I am wondering if there was an exact relation/equation that relate inorganic matter with it's elements such P2O5
@ Chaimae, poultry litter ash is a very good source of P beside K, Ca and Mg. It can be used as P fertilizer in agricultural crops, The detailed relationship have not been worked yet but more P followed by K is present in it. The attached files may provide you some more information.
hi,
I have measured the ash content for biomass sources. HOwever, I believe there cannot be a direct co-relation between the ash content and minerals as it varies between each batch.
I agree with Navnit Kumar Ramamoorthy, There is not direct correlation between ash content and specific mineral contents this necessitates a confirmatory analysis to deterimine P for instance it cannot be predicted from ash content. The utility of organic amendment if directed for land application will be limited by economics of its content. For a material like chicken litter which can have issues with antibiotics and salts a good option is the reduction and stabilization by composting which lowers the constraint of salts and antibiotics with the process and 80% reduction in mass ends in an improved product and lowering shipping costs. In addition the probiotic nature of value of the product is improved in the stabilized composted product. In the Morocco environment the agriculture is constrained by low soil organic matter and composting done right address the efficiency of using water in irrigated field environments.
There may be a relation between ash content and P content of poultry litter. Because chicken have very bad digestive system and 35-40% of the feed is defecated without any chemical decomposition. Therefore if you know the composition of feed you can find a relation. This only possible for certain type of keeping system. Changing keeping systems may not reveal such relation. For example using different type of bedding material or keeping without bedding matterial results in different outcomes. Each bedding material which can exibit some degree of heterogeneity can have specific relation. Most direct relation between feeding and mineral composition of poultry litter ash can be observed for keeping system without bedding. The other factor may affect the relation is that the addition of dead body of chiecken. This also cause some defects in the relations.