Quantity of hydrophobic functional CH-groups - Decisive for soil water repellency caused by digestate amendment

Abstract

Anaerobic digestates are used as organic fertilizers; however, they are suspected to interfere negatively with soils. To investigate the relevance of the anaerobic digestates composition on potential wettability and contact angle of the soil, we mixed in a laboratory experiment 30 m3 ha-1 of anaerobic digestates derived from mechanically pre-treated substrates from maize and sugar beet with a homogenized Cambic Luvisol. Fourier transform infrared-spectra and diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform-spectra of particle intact and finely ground soilanaerobic digestates-mixtures were analyzed to determine the quantities of hydrophobic functional groups in the soil-anaerobic digestates-mixtures that are used here as an indicator for the potential hydrophobicity. The anaerobic digestates application increased the amount of hydrophobic functional groups of the mixtures and reduced the wettability of the soil. However, for intact particle samples an up to threefold higher amount of hydrophobic groups was found as compared to the finely ground ones, indicating a dilution effect of mechanical grinding on the effectivity of the organic matter that is presumably located as a coating on mineral soil particles. For the particle intact samples, the intensity of hydrophobic functional groups bands denoting hydrophobic brickstones in organic matter is indicative for the actual wettability of the soil-anaerobic digestates-mixtures.