Characterization of Phosphorus(P) in Poultry Litter and Determination of P Extraction Efficiency of Extractants.

The Alabama poultry industry is the second largest agricultural industry with a $15 billion impact on Alabama’s economy. However, the poultry industry generates 1.5 million tons of litter containing 19,665 tons of Phosphorus(P). As poultry litter is bulky, its long-distance transportation is uneconomical. Poultry litter (PL), when applied repeatedly over time causes the soil P levels to rise beyond environmental threshold levels and increase the risk of P loss to waterways via runoff during storm events. Development of methods to extract phosphorus from litter could be an important step towards reducing the P transport into the environment and extracted P can be safely reused for agricultural purposes. The objectives of our experiments are 1) to quantify the P dissolution efficacy of extractants 2) quantify proportions of organic verses inorganic P forms in labile phase during extraction process. Poultry litter was collected from several poultry houses across Alabama. The extractants that were selected for the first phase of the experiments were: deionized water (H₂O), 0.5 M NaHCO₃, 0.1 M NaOH and 1 N HCl. Poultry litter to solution ratio of 1:100 and 1 hour shaking time was used. The extracted solution was analyzed for molybdate reactive P, organic P and total P during each extractant. Based on the preliminary results 1 N HCl > 0.5 M NaHCO₃ > Deionized water > 0.1 M NaOH. 1N HCl extracted on an average of 95% of Total P from P from P from PL followed by 0.5M NaHCO₃ (40% of total P) and Deionized water (30% of total P). Additional extractants will be explored for their P dissolution efficacy.