Agriculture fertilizer/manure

The excavation of a clandestine grave had revealed the largely skeletonized remains of a young man who had been buried for 5 years in a biologically active soil. The subsoil was clay, with the grave cut being water-filled at the time of the excavation due to a fractured field drain. It was covered by a stack of horse manure used as agricultural fertilizer that had considerably modified the burial conditions. The body had been buried clothed, and items of textile were recovered with the human remains. These included cloth, metal, and leather that had been subject to considerable differential preservation. 

A last application of the previous reference (Thomas et al., 2005) was the study of pollution sources of lake Brome (Southern Quebec) from its tributaries, giving useful information related to agricultural pressure (manure spreading), wastewater management (urban runoff discharges) or golf management (use of fertilizers and pesticides). 

Plants must have nitrogen to grow. In the beginnings of agriculture, animal manure was the primary source of nitrogen. Much later in history, fertilizer was introduced. The main component of fertilizer... 

A fertilizer is a material that furnishes one or more of the chemical elements necessary for the proper development and growth of plants. The most important fertilizers are fertilizer products (also called chemical or mineral fertilizers), manures, and plant residues. A fertilizer product is a material produced by industrial processes with the specific purpose of being used as a fertilizer. Fertilizers are essential in today s agricultural system to replace the elements extracted from the soil in the form of food and other agricultural products. 

The suggestion frequentiy is made that substitution of organic fertilizers, namely manures and composts, for chemical fertilizers would be of ecological benefit. The reaUty is, however, that the supply and logistics of such materials could never be adequate for the present-day level of agriculture. Furthermore, iatensive appHcation of such materials to the soil would itself present ecological problems, such as mn-off pollution and steady buildup of toxic heavy metals. 

Agricultural waste. To prevent overregulation of farms and promote waste recycling, solid wastes generated by crop or animal farming are excluded from the definition of hazardous waste provided that the wastes are returned to the ground as fertilizers or soil conditioners. Examples of such wastes are crop residues and manures. 

Increases in phosphorus export from agricultural landscapes have been measured after the application of phosphorus. Phosphorus losses are influenced by the rate, time, and method of phosphorus application, form of fertilizer or manure applied, amount and time of rainfall after application, and land cover. These losses are often small from the standpoint of farmers (generally less than 200 kg P km-2) and represent a minor proportion of fertilizer or manure phosphorus applied (generally less than 5%). Thus, these losses are not of economic importance to farmers in terms of irreplaceable fertility. However, they can contribute to eutrophication of downstream aquatic ecosystems. 

Secondary sources of PCDD/PCDFs, their reservoirs, are those matrices where they are already present, either in the environment or as products. Product reservoirs include PCP-treated wood, PCB-containing transformers and sewage sludge, compost and liquid manure, which can be used as fertilizers in agriculture and gardens. Reservoirs in the environment are, for example, landfills and waste dumps, contaminated soils (mainly from former chemical production or handling sites), and contaminated sediments (especially in harbours and rivers with industries discharging directly to the waterways). 

Today, manure refers to excretory products of animals and finds its most common usage in reference to farm animals. This organic material was and is used as fertilizer to provide necessary elements for plants. In the past, it was practically the only material readily available for increasing plant or crop production. The general idea, however, is to add something to soil that will improve plant production. Thus, it remains common in popular agriculture literature to find that material added to soil to improve crop production is called manure even if the material is not organic [8,9],... 

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