Potential short-term losses of N<sub>2</sub>O and N<sub>2</sub> from high concentrations of biogas digestate in arable soils

Fiedler, Sebastian Rainer; Augustin, Jürgen; Wrage-Mönnig, Nicole; Jurasinski, Gerald; Gusovius, Bertram; Glatzel, Stephan

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-3-161-2017

Articles | Volume 3, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-3-161-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-3-161-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 3, issue 3

Original research article

|

28 Sep 2017

Original research article |

| 28 Sep 2017

Potential short-term losses of N₂O and N₂ from high concentrations of biogas digestate in arable soils

Sebastian Rainer Fiedler, Jürgen Augustin, Nicole Wrage-Mönnig, Gerald Jurasinski, Bertram Gusovius, and Stephan Glatzel

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Final revised paper (published on 28 Sep 2017)
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Preprint (discussion started on 28 Feb 2017)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'soil', Anonymous Referee #1, 30 Mar 2017
- AC1: 'Response To reviewer no. 1', Sebastian R. Fiedler, 04 Jul 2017
RC2: 'Manuscript should not be considered for publication due to serious short-comings', Anonymous Referee #2, 13 May 2017
- AC2: 'Reply to reviewer no. 2', Sebastian R. Fiedler, 04 Jul 2017
RC3: 'Overinterpretation?', Anonymous Referee #3, 06 Jun 2017
- AC3: 'Response to reviewer no. 3', Sebastian R. Fiedler, 04 Jul 2017
- AC5: 'Shortenings of the manuscript', Sebastian R. Fiedler, 12 Jul 2017
AC4: 'Revised manuscript 2017-07-04', Sebastian R. Fiedler, 04 Jul 2017
AC6: 'Manuscript Version 2017-07-12', Sebastian R. Fiedler, 12 Jul 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (14 Jul 2017) by Karsten Kalbitz

AR by Sebastian R. Fiedler on behalf of the Authors (14 Jul 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (24 Jul 2017) by Karsten Kalbitz

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (03 Aug 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Fiedler et al. R1

Fiedler et al. have addressed most of the concerns raised about the original version of the manuscript satisfactorily and changed the ms accordingly. Below some minor, mostly editorial remarks.

L. 19: … formation *and emission* of nitrogeneous gases
L. 21: inhibitory effect of the high NH4+ content in BD on what? Nitrification?
L. 22. “ … like after injection”? Do you mean “right” after injection? How about writing: Our results suggest a larger potential for N2O formation right after BD injection in the fine-textured clayey silt than the coarse loamy sand. ?
L. 23: … which could be followed by: “By contrast, the loamy sand showed a larger potential for N2 production under anaerobic conditions”.
l. 24: rephrase this last sentence in the abstract: the need for longer-term studies is not a direct result of your observations; thus, saying “… our results show the need for further investigations on the dynamics and the duration …” is misguiding. Rather try to summarize the significance or relevance of your observations. For instance, you could say something about how much of the added N was lost during the denitrification event simulated in your experiment, since you in the beginning of the abstract present BD injection as a counter-measure for NH3 volatilization. If you get N2O-N losses up to 11.7 mg N2O-N m-2 h-1 at 30%WFPS in the clayey soil or 35 mg N2-(N?) in the sandy loam, how would this compare to typical rates of NH3-N loss during the first days after surface application? I know, reported NH3 volatilization rates are all over the place, but still it would be interesting to learn how this compares to potential N gas losses from injected BG.

L. 44: *may* promote … if it does not get inhibitory
L. 66: “but with the restriction that inorganic sources could not be differentiated”; skip this here. Since you later get a good correlation with total N gas loss, carbonates do not seem to be a major issue.
L. 68: what do you mean by “hypothetical concentration”? Concentration of what?
L. 97. “…repacked to reach nutrient concentrations comparable to that in injection bands”. Good! That’s the right way to express it.

L. 203: why do you express N2O loss as mg N2O-N m-2 h-1, but N2 loss as mg N2 m-1 h-1?

L. 230: “However, the latter studies assumed a distribution of BD into soil by a cultivator, which implies a smaller concentration of BD compared to its occurrence in injection slits”. Here you still argue that you applied slurry in “slits”, which is not true. You mixed it into the soil, right?

L. 249: ”generally adverse conditions for the formation of N2O and N2.” What kind of conditions would this be? explain

L. 347: “…also true for our incubation as well”. Language!

The R1 version still needs language checking!

L. 351: Why “however”?

L. 354. Why “nevertheless”? Putting conjunctive adverbs in front of every sentence does not automatically make a “story”. Conjunctions have to make “sense” and I do not grasp how expected change in N2/(N2+N2O) ratios relates (or opposes) to ammonium inhibition in the sentence before. Revise.

l. 342. Conclusions: based on your study, how do you judge BD injection environmentally? What is the smaller evil? NH3 losses after surface application or N2O + N2 losses after injection. I am aware that a lab experiment cannot easily be extrapolated to field conditions, but somehow it would be nice if you could come back to the starting point/motivation of the study and give a rough assessment. Coupled nitrification/denitrification N losses from injected slurry seem to massive in your study ….

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ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (review by Editor) (03 Aug 2017) by Karsten Kalbitz

AR by Sebastian R. Fiedler on behalf of the Authors (14 Aug 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (25 Aug 2017) by Karsten Kalbitz

ED: Publish as is (27 Aug 2017) by Jorge Mataix-Solera (Executive editor)

AR by Sebastian R. Fiedler on behalf of the Authors (28 Aug 2017) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Injection of biogas digestates (BDs) is suspected to increase losses of N₂O and thus to counterbalance prevented NH₃ emissions. We determined N₂O and N₂ losses after mixing high concentrations of BD into two soils by an incubation under an artificial helium–oxygen atmosphere. Emissions did not increase with the application rate of BD, probably due to an inhibitory effect of the high NH₄⁺ content in BD on nitrification. However, cumulated gaseous N losses may effectively offset NH₃ reductions.

Potential short-term losses of N2O and N2 from high concentrations of biogas digestate in arable soils

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Potential short-term losses of N₂O and N₂ from high concentrations of biogas digestate in arable soils