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TECHNICAL REPORTS

Plant and Environment Interactions

White Spruce Response to Co-Composted Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Drilling Waste

Effects of Compost Age and Nitrogen Fertilization

^a Department of Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering and Institute of Agricultural Science & Technology, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 500-757, Korea
^b Department of Renewable Resources, 442 Earth Sciences Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2E3
^c Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge Research Centre, P.O. Box 3000, Lethbridge, AB, Canada T1J 4B1

^* Corresponding author (scott.chang{at}ualberta.ca)

Received for publication November 15, 2004. There are growing interests to use co-composted drilling wastes contaminated with hydrocarbons as growth media for planting in land reclamation. However, such use of the compost may have potential problems such as inherent toxicity of residual hydrocarbon and microbial N immobilization due to high compost C to N ratios. We investigated the growth, biomass production, N uptake, and foliar ¹³C of white spruce (Picea glauca [Moench] Voss) seedlings in a pot experiment using 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-yr-old composts (with different hydrocarbon concentrations and C to N ratios) and a local noncontaminated soil with (200 kg N ha^–1) or without N fertilization. Growth and N content of seedlings (particularly N content in roots) were lower when grown in the compost media as compared with those grown in the soil. Within the compost treatments seedling growth was affected by compost age, but the magnitude of growth reduction was not linearly proportional to hydrocarbon concentrations. Plant N uptake increased with compost age, which corresponds with an increase in indigenous mineral N concentration. Effects of N fertilization on N uptake were curtailed by the presence of indigenous mineral N (e.g., in the 4-yr-old compost) and by fertilization-induced stimulation of microbial activities (e.g., in the 1-yr-old compost). The differences in foliar ¹³C values between seedlings grown in compost and soil (P < 0.05) suggest that limitations on water uptake caused by the residual hydrocarbon might have been the predominant factor limiting seedling growth in the compost media. This study suggests that water stress caused by residual hydrocarbons may be a critical factor for the successful use of co-composted drilling wastes as a growth medium.

Abbreviations: C_i/C_a, the ratio of intercellular to ambient CO₂ partial pressure • HC, hydrocarbon • NDFF, nitrogen derived from fertilizer • TPH, total petroleum hydrocarbon • WHC, water holding capacity • , carbon isotope discrimination • ¹³C, carbon isotope abundance