Use of blood meal and acidic pumice mixture to fodder crops in Van Region, Eastern Turkey

Abstract

The chemical and biological qualities of grassland soils are degraded due to insufficient nutrient supplies that arc consumed by plants since millennia. This is more evident particularly at soils in regions where agricultural income is considerably low. Attempts to increase grassland nutrient capacity by chemical fertilizers can cause pollution of environment and are transported to living organisms via plants. Thus, the use of natural mineral and organic materials to maintain the grassland soil plant nutrient balance is more environmental friendly. While elements such as potassium, iron, sulfur and zinc are generally obtained from rocks and mines, nitrogen and phosphorus are supplied by using natural organic materials or as it is in this study they are supplied from processed products. The ease of obtaining natural mineral and organic materials from local sources along with environmentally friendly properties make them advantageous compared to chemical fertilizers. The study is aimed to supply plant nutrients by using blood meal as well as to maintain soil physical quality by utilizing acidic pumice to the soils of the Eastern Anatolia in which excess biomass is removed from soil as forage crops. Results revealed that the use of blood meal and pumice enhanced both soils plant nutrients and growth of fodder plants.