Partial photo: Sri Lanka
Researchers have rescued food waste destined for the landfill and turned it into an elixir for crops that boosts good bacteria and could promote better crop growth. Using grocery stores’ unpurchased food and leftover cereal mash used to make beer, they separately fermented these waste streams and transformed each using a form of anaerobic digestion, producing a substance called digestate—a nutrient—rich substrate applicable in liquid form to crops. They drip-fed the food waste brew through the irrigation system to an orchard of citrus plants. The drip-fed liquid also increased nitrogen levels in the soil samples by between 152% (grocery store waste) and 166% (beer mash waste)—providing a ready-made recycled nutrient source for plants. All this may have the potential to replace pesticides and other costly, environmentally-damaging agricultural inputs. Plus, the nitrogen-rich waste solution could become a sustainable substitute for synthetic fertilizers.
www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2021/02/heres-how-we-can-repurpose-food-waste-to-grow-healthier-crops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=heres-how-we-can-repurpose-food-waste-to-grow-healthier-crops&utm_source=Anthropocene&utm_campaign=12f6474a0c-Anthropocene+science+to+AM&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ececcea89a-12f6474a0c-294331733
Source: Pagliaccia et al. “Two Food Waste By-Products Selectively Stimulate Beneficial Resident Citrus Host-Associated Microbes in a Zero-Runoff Indoor Plant Production System.” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 2021