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The Effect of Anaerobically Digested Sewage Sludge on Organic Fractions of Blount Silt Loam¹

ABSTRACT

Lysimeters containing Blount silt loam (Aerie ochraqualf) were furrow irrigated with 298 metric tons/ha (as solids) of anaerobically digested sludge over the 6-year period from May 1969 through April 1975. Soil organic carbon in the top 15 cm increased from 0.95 to 2.29% over this period. The greatest proportionate change among fractions of organic carbon was observed in the oil and grease fraction, which increased from 1.67 to 11.9% of the total soil organic carbon. No significant differences were observed between control and treated plots below the 30 cm level for any of the fractions except water-extractable carbon. All organic fractions significantly increased with respect to control plots in leachate water sampled in 1975. Increases in total organic carbon due to sludge application were two- to threefold, from a minimum of 12.5 mg/liter in control plots to a maximum of 32.0 mg/liter in sludge-treated plots. Carbohydrate carbon showed the greatest change among leachate-water fractions, increasing from a high of 2.9 mg/liter for control plots to a high of 12.4 mg/liter for treated plots.

Key Words: leaching • ground water • carbohydrates • oil and grease • organic nitrogen

¹ Contribution from the Dep. of Agron., Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801. The authors gratefully acknowledge support by grants from the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago and the USEPA (DO-UI-0080) for the work reported here.

² Formerly Research Assistant (now Research Agronomist, A & L Agric. Lab., Fort Wayne, Ind.), Professor of Soil Mineralogy and Ecology, and Professor of Soil Ecology, respectively.

Received for publication August 13, 1977.