Untersuchungen zum Stickstoff-, Phosphor- und Kaliumeintrag in das Grundwasser nach Gülledüngung

About 53 million tons of liquid manure from the animal husbandry plants of the GDR are used for purposes of organic fertilization per year. Fertilization by liquid manure must be reasonably done, since there should be avoided fertilization and yield losses of agriculture and damages to the ground-water as a drinking-water resource. In dependence on the cultivation of crops, the kinds of graining of soils, the month of application and of the quantity used–referred to the application of nitrogen of liquid manure in kg/ha–the enrichment effect of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus in infiltration water is determined with the aid of lysimeter investigations. Components of nitrogen which are not used by plants get into ground-water as undesired nitrate, partly through nitrification processes. Unused potassium, too, migrates into ground-water, whereas phosphorus is bound by soil. By proposals for new limit values of load with liquid manure, summarized in tabular form, the valid specifications of the GDR standards “TGL” are criticized.