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TECHNICAL REPORTS
Atmospheric Pollutants and Trace Gases

Ammonia, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide Emission from Pig Slurry Applied to a Pasture in New Zealand

Robert R. Sherlock^a, Sven G. Sommer^*,b, Rehmat Z. Khan, C. Wesley Wood^b, Elizabeth A. Guertal^b, John R. Freney^c, Christopher O. Dawson^d and Keith C. Cameron^a

^a Soil Plant and Ecological Sciences Division, P.O. Box 84, Lincoln Univ., Canterbury, New Zealand
^b Dep. of Agronomy and Soils, 236 Funchess Hall, Auburn University, AL 36849-5412
^c CSIRO Plant Industry, G.P.O. Box 1600, Canberra, ACT, Australia
^d Animal and Food Sciences Division, P.O. Box 84, Lincoln Univ., Canterbury, New Zealand

* Corresponding author (SvenG.Sommer{at}agrsci.dk)

Received for publication June 19, 2001. Much animal manure is being applied to small land areas close to animal confinements, resulting in environmental degradation. This paper reports a study on the emissions of ammonia (NH₃), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O) from a pasture during a 90-d period after pig slurry application (60 m³ ha^-1) to the soil surface. The pig slurry contained 6.1 kg total N m^-3, 4.2 kg of total ammoniacal nitrogen (TAN = NH₃ + NH₄) m^-3, and 22.1 kg C m^-3, and had a pH of 8.14. Ammonia was lost at a fast rate immediately after slurry application (4.7 kg N ha^-1 h^-1), when the pH and TAN concentration of the surface soil were high, but the loss rate declined quickly thereafter. Total NH₃ losses from the treated pasture were 57 kg N ha^-1 (22.5% of the TAN applied). Methane emission was highest (39.6 g C ha^-1 h^-1) immediately after application, as dissolved CH₄ was released from the slurry. Emissions then continued at a low rate for approximately 7 d, presumably due to metabolism of volatile fatty acids in the anaerobic slurry–treated soil. The net CH₄ emission was 1052 g C ha^-1 (0.08% of the carbon applied). Nitrous oxide emission was low for the first 14 d after slurry application, then showed emission peaks of 7.5 g N ha^-1 h^-1 on Day 25 and 15.8 g N ha^-1 h^-1 on Day 67, and decline depending on rainfall and nitrate (NO₃) concentrations. Emission finally reached background levels after approximately 90 d. Nitrous oxide emission was 7.6 kg N ha^-1 (2.1% of the N applied). It is apparent that of the two major greenhouse gases measured in this study, N₂O is by far the more important tropospheric pollutant.

Abbreviations: IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change • TAN, total ammoniacal nitrogen (NH₃ + NH₄)

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