What Is Bio-Organic Fertilizer and Why Is It the Mainstream of Future Agricultural Development
Bio-organic fertilizer refers to a type of fertilizer that combines specific functional microorganisms with organic materials mainly derived from animal and plant residues (such as livestock and poultry manure, crop straw, etc.) that have undergone harmless treatment and composting, and that has the effects of both microbial fertilizer and organic fertilizer.
Reasons It Is the Mainstream of Future Development
I. The Importance of Promoting Bio-Organic Fertilizer
Fertilizer is the food of plants, and fertilization is an essential and important means of ensuring high and stable crop yields in agricultural production. China is the world's largest producer and consumer of chemical fertilizers, and the amount of chemical fertilizer used is very large. Although it has increased crop yields over a certain period and to a certain extent, the harm it causes to soil, water sources, agricultural products and the environment is increasing day by day, such as soil acidification, hardening, nutrient imbalance, groundwater pollution, and excessive levels of heavy metals and nitrates in agricultural products, leading to various ecological and environmental pollution problems and the occurrence of human diseases. Due to heavy and indiscriminate application of chemical fertilizers and neglect of organic fertilizer application, soil organic matter is deficient, leading to a decline in soil fertility, which has become an important limiting factor affecting the sustainable development of China's agriculture and the stable and high yields of crops.
According to survey statistics, about 80% of China's current agricultural arable land is deficient in nitrogen, 50% in phosphorus, and 30% in potassium, and some soils have less than 1% organic matter. Various types of organic fertilizers usually contain more than 45% organic matter, more than 2.5% nitrogen, and more than 2% phosphorus, and also contain various trace elements. They are not only a good source of nutrients but also an excellent soil conditioner.
Therefore, vigorously promoting bio-organic fertilizer is an inevitable path for achieving sustainable agricultural development in the future.
II. Advantages and Effects of Bio-Organic Fertilizer
1. Advantages of Bio-Organic Fertilizer
Bio-organic fertilizer refers to fertilizer processed from livestock and poultry manure, straw, agricultural and sideline products and food processing waste, organic garbage, and municipal sludge, etc., through microbial fermentation, composting and harmless treatment.
●Bio-organic fertilizer has the following advantages:
1. Comparison between bio-organic fertilizer and chemical fertilizer:
1) Bio-organic fertilizer has a complete range of nutrient elements; chemical fertilizer has only one or a few nutrient elements.
2) Bio-organic fertilizer can improve the soil; frequent use of chemical fertilizer can cause soil hardening.
3) Bio-organic fertilizer can improve product quality; excessive application of chemical fertilizer leads to poor product quality.
4) Bio-organic fertilizer can improve the microbial community in the crop rhizosphere and enhance the plant's ability to resist pests and diseases; chemical fertilizer results in a single crop microbial population, making plants prone to pests and diseases.
5) Bio-organic fertilizer can promote the utilization of chemical fertilizer and improve its use efficiency; using chemical fertilizer alone easily causes fixation and loss of nutrients.
2. Comparison between bio-organic fertilizer and refined organic fertilizer:
Refined organic fertilizer is a commercial organic fertilizer made from livestock and poultry manure that has been dried, crushed and packaged for sale.
1) Bio-organic fertilizer is fully composted and will not burn roots or rot seedlings; refined organic fertilizer is not composted, and after direct use it composts in the soil, causing seedling burn.
2) Bio-organic fertilizer undergoes high-temperature composting, killing most pathogenic bacteria and insect eggs and reducing the occurrence of pests and diseases; refined organic fertilizer is not composted, and when it composts in the soil it attracts underground pests.
3) Beneficial bacteria are added to bio-organic fertilizer, and due to the occupancy effect of the microbial community, disease occurrence is reduced; refined organic fertilizer contains no beneficial bacteria due to high-temperature drying.
4) Bio-organic fertilizer has high nutrient content; refined organic fertilizer suffers nutrient loss due to high-temperature treatment.
5) Bio-organic fertilizer has a light odor after deodorization, with almost no smell; refined organic fertilizer has not been deodorized, and gives off a foul odor when it absorbs moisture.
3. Differences between bio-organic fertilizer and farmyard manure:
1) Bio-organic fertilizer is fully composted, and the mortality rate of insect eggs reaches more than 95%; farmyard manure is simply piled up, and the mortality rate of insect eggs is low.
2) Bio-organic fertilizer has no odor; farmyard manure has a foul odor.
3) Bio-organic fertilizer is convenient to apply and uniform; farmyard manure is inconvenient to apply and the fertilizer application is uneven.
4. Differences between bio-organic fertilizer and microbial bacterial fertilizer:
1) Bio-organic fertilizer is cheap, at around 1,000 yuan or more per ton; microbial bacterial fertilizer is expensive, with prices as high as tens of thousands of yuan.
2) Bio-organic fertilizer contains functional bacteria and organic matter, and can improve the soil and promote the release of nutrients fixed by the soil; microbial bacterial fertilizer contains only functional bacteria, and promotes the utilization of soil-fixed fertilizers through functional bacteria.
3) The organic matter in bio-organic fertilizer is itself the living environment for functional bacteria, so they easily survive after being applied to the soil; the functional bacteria in microbial bacterial fertilizer may not be suitable for some soil environments.
2. Effects of Bio-Organic Fertilizer
(1) Increase crop yield and improve crop quality. The nutrients in bio-organic fertilizer are released slowly, and nitrogen is mostly supplied to plants in the form of ammonium ions or amino acids. After entering plant cells, it does not need to consume a large amount of energy and directly participates in the synthesis of plant cell substances. Therefore, after using bio-organic fertilizer, plants grow quickly, accumulate more necessary components and dry matter, and the quality of agricultural products is good.
(2) Improve soil fertility and improve soil physical and chemical properties. The use of bio-organic fertilizer not only replenishes the consumed organic fertilizer but also continuously increases the soil organic matter content. After organic matter is decomposed by microorganisms, it can condense into new humus, combine with other substances in the soil to form organic-inorganic complexes, and promote the formation of micro-aggregate structure in the soil, thereby coordinating the contradictions among water, fertilizer, air and heat in the soil, improving soil structure, making the soil loose, and improving tillage performance.
(3) Regulate the microbial flora and improve the soil micro-ecosystem. Composted organic fertilizer contains beneficial microorganisms such as yeasts, lactic acid bacteria, and cellulose-decomposing bacteria, while bio-organic fertilizer with added functional bacteria also contains beneficial bacteria such as nitrogen-fixing bacteria, silicate bacteria, phosphate-solubilizing bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria, and Pseudomonas. In addition to the ability to produce large amounts of active substances, these microorganisms also have the ability to fix nitrogen, solubilize phosphorus, and release potassium, and some also have the ability to inhibit pathogenic bacteria in plant roots, while others have the ability to improve the soil micro-ecological environment. In addition, after bio-organic fertilizer is applied to the soil, it can regulate the composition of the microbial flora in the soil, causing beneficial changes in the structure of the soil micro-ecosystem.
(4) Activate insoluble compounds and improve the soil's nutrient supply capacity. Bio-organic fertilizer contains nitrogen-fixing microorganisms, which can reduce nitrogen in the air into components that can be absorbed and utilized by crops through the action of nitrogenase, and this is an important pathway for providing nitrogen nutrition to crops. In addition, a certain amount of phosphate-solubilizing microorganisms and silicate bacteria are also added to bio-organic fertilizer. After being applied to the soil, they proliferate and act synergistically with other soil microorganisms to decompose certain primary and secondary minerals in the soil, and at the same time release nutrients such as phosphorus and potassium fixed by these minerals, converting ineffective phosphorus and potassium into effective nutrients that can be absorbed and utilized by crops, directly absorbed and utilized by crops, and improving the soil's fertilizer supply capacity.
(5) Improve soil ecology and reduce the occurrence of plant pests and diseases. Bio-organic fertilizer contains a variety of special-effect bacteria. During the growth and reproduction of microorganisms, they can secrete a variety of antibiotics and plant growth hormones, which can not only inhibit the activity of plant pathogenic microorganisms and play a role in preventing and controlling plant diseases, but also stimulate crop growth, make the root system well developed, promote the synthesis of chlorophyll, protein and nucleic acids, and improve crop stress resistance.
III. Production Process and Technology of Bio-Organic Fertilizer
The technical content of bio-organic fertilizer production is relatively high. In addition to adding biological agents that promote the composting and decomposition of organic materials during the composting process to achieve targeted composting and deodorization, microorganisms with specific functions also need to be added to the product to enhance its effects. At present, in terms of management, China includes bio-organic fertilizer within the category of microbial fertilizer and implements stricter management measures than for organic fertilizer, in order to promote the healthy development of organic fertilizer.
1. Production Process
Bio-organic fertilizer production enterprises registered with the Ministry of Agriculture are basically mainly engaged in the production of microbial fertilizer. In terms of fermentation production processes, trough-type pile fermentation is mostly used, and other fermentation methods, such as flat-ground pile fermentation, fermentation trough fermentation, and sealed warehouse fermentation, have also been applied in production. In the fermentation and composting process, the regulation of material moisture, carbon-nitrogen ratio, temperature, etc., and the use of composting agents are key to the production process. In particular, the application of microbial agents directly affects the material fermentation cycle and degree of composting. The composted material basically achieves product harmlessness, which is also conducive to the survival of the functional bacteria added in the subsequent processing.
2. Production Technology
In the post-treatment of fermented materials, most enterprises add functional bacteria for compounding and shaping. The product dosage form is mainly powder, but rotary drum granulation or extrusion granulation is also used. Granular products overcome the shortcomings of powder products such as poor appearance and low grade, and improve the marketability of the product, but at the same time they also increase the production cost of the enterprise and have a certain impact on the survival of effective bacteria.
3. Types and Use of Microbial Strains
Microbial strains are the core of bio-organic fertilizer products. In the production process, there are generally two links involving the use of microorganisms:
One is the addition of composting agents during the composting process that promote material decomposition and composting and also have a deodorizing function. These are mostly composed of composite microbial systems, and common strains include photosynthetic bacteria, lactic acid bacteria, yeasts, actinomycetes, Penicillium, Trichoderma, etc.;
The other is the functional bacteria added after the material is composted, generally mainly nitrogen-fixing bacteria, phosphate-solubilizing bacteria, silicate bacteria, lactic acid bacteria, Pseudomonas, actinomycetes, etc., which exert specific fertilizer effects in the product. Therefore, for bio-organic fertilizer production, the screening and use of microbial strains is a core technology. Only by mastering this key technology can the decomposition and composting of materials be accelerated and the application effect of the product be ensured.
4. Sales and Application
Because bio-organic fertilizer has higher production costs than ordinary organic fertilizer, it is mainly used on high-value cash crops such as vegetables, fruits, and Chinese herbal medicines, and good results have been achieved.
Bio-organic fertilizer plays an irreplaceable role in improving the quality of agricultural products, but there are still certain difficulties in production and sales at present. This is because high-quality agricultural products have not fully achieved the principle of higher prices for higher quality, which to a certain extent affects the enthusiasm of growers and makes the promotion of bio-organic fertilizer encounter relatively great difficulties.
In recent years, bio-organic fertilizer has been relatively widely used in some ecological demonstration zones and green and organic agricultural product bases, and this is the main direction for the future development of bio-organic fertilizer. With the expansion of the production scale of green and organic agricultural products and the improvement of people's consumption levels, the production and application of bio-organic fertilizer will inevitably be the mainstream.