The application of EDXRF for screening soil quality in agricultural soils and dairy processing sludge amended soils

After which, the ability of the EDXRF to predict sand, clay and silt content rapidly in Irish soils was tested. Lastly, an incubation experiment was made to evaluate the feasibility of anaerobic digested and lime-stabilised dairy processing sludge to replace triple superphosphate in grassland production. The results showed that when a wax binder is added to the soils before analysis and the EDXRF is calibrated efficiently; you can improve the accuracy for measuring multi elements in contaminated soils.

In addition, the instrument could predict clay and sand content in 40% of soils derived from limestone and siliceous stones. Finally, the lime-stabilised sludge increased P availability across all soil textures better than the anaerobic digested sludge and triple superphosphate. In conclusion, the findings in this project demonstrate that dairy processing sludge can replace P fertiliser in grassland; thus, farmers can save costs for fertiliser purchases.

Finally, the EDXRF is a multipurpose screening technique for identifying soil particle size distribution and contaminated soils.<br>