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Ammonia emissions from cattle dung, urine and urine with dicyandiamide in a temperate grassland
Fischer, K. Burchill, William Lanigan, Gary Kaupenjohann, M. Chambers, B. J. Richards, Karl G. Forrestal, Patrick J.
Fischer, K.
Burchill, William
Lanigan, Gary
Kaupenjohann, M.
Chambers, B. J.
Richards, Karl G.
Forrestal, Patrick J.
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03/09/2015
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Fischer, K., Burchill, W., Lanigan, G.J., Kaupenjohann, M., Chambers, B., Richards, K.G. and Forrestal, P.J. 2016. Ammonia emissions from cattle dung, urine and urine with dicyandiamide. Soil Use and Management. 32: 83-91. doi: 10.1111/sum.12203
Abstract
Deposition of urine and dung in pasture-based livestock production systems is a major source of
ammonia (NH3) volatilization, contributing to the eutrophication and acidification of water bodies and
to indirect nitrous oxide emissions. The objectives of this study were to (i) measure NH3 volatilization
from dung and urine in three seasons, (ii) test the effect of spiking urine with the nitrification inhibitor
dicyandiamide (DCD) on NH3 volatilization and (iii) generate NH3 emission factors (EFs) for dung,
urine and urine + DCD in temperate maritime grassland. Accordingly, simulated dung, urine and urine
spiked with DCD (at 30 kg DCD/ha equivalent rate) patches were applied to temperate grassland.
Treatments were applied three times in 2014 with one measurement of NH3 loss being completed in
spring, summer and autumn. The NH3-N EF was highest in spring, which was most likely due to the
near absence of rainfall throughout the duration of loss measurement. The EFs across the experiments
ranged between 2.8 and 5.3% (mean 3.9%) for dung, 8.7 and 14.9% (mean 11.2%) for urine and 9.5 and
19.5% (mean 12.9%) for urine + DCD, showing that ammonia loss from dung was significantly lower
than from urine. Aggregating country-specific emission data such as those from the current experiment
with data from climatically similar regions (perhaps in a weighted manner which accounts for the
relative abundance of certain environmental conditions) along with modelling is a potentially resourceefficient
approach for refining national ammonia inventories.