In New South Wales there are farmers that are fertilizing their fields using diesel fumes. Something tells me there’s a catch to this. Help me out?
I’d be worried a little about lead buildup in the soil. Lead was removed from gasoline in the US, but I’m not up on whether it’s present in agricultural diesel fuel in Australia.
I’m interested in what the actual process is, and what chemicals and elements are in the diesel exhaust. Not much about that in the article (I didn’t listen to the audio clips, so maybe they mention it there).
ETA: Oh, and my understanding* is that a lot of lawn fertilizer is a byproduct of other industries already, so you’re kind of putting industrial waste on your lawn if you use that.
- but fight my ignorance here.
The primary combustion products are carbon dioxide and water. I’m not sure what “minerals” the guy in the article is taking about. There may be some nitrogen oxides.
We typically fertilize by adding nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus in bioavailable forms. Diesel exhaust isn’t going to do much for you here.
It’s not so much that lead was removed from gasoline in the US - it’s that manufacturers stopped adding it.
Tetraethyl lead is an anti-knock additive that was used in gasoline for decades. In the mid-1970’s it was phased out for most vehicles because it was directly harmful to the environment, and it was also incompatable with catalytic converter technology. You can still find it in some general-aviation gasolines.
To my knowledge it has never been used in diesel fuels. Diesel engines rely on autoignition, so anti-knock additives are counterproductive for them.
diesel engines have inherently high emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) so maybe the soil captures this…
But the question remains- is it a good substitution for actually fertilizing your farm instead?
Well if they’re putting back nitrogen they are actually fertilizing their farms. There’s lots of nitrogen in fertilizer, it’s part of what makes it go “BOOM!”
How efficient the process is I have no idea but it seems at least plausible on the surface.
My understanding is that NOx is generally how a lot of the nitrogen that you’re trying to get into the soil escapes.
Absent some additional explanation, I’m not seeing a mechanism for this to do much good.
The idea sounds plausible but I’d question the effectiveness of the delivery system. Nitrogen is the most critical element for crops in salty soil (common where irrigation farming is practiced) but the system mentioned seems to cool the exhaust then run it out through the air seeder. A once-per-year pass when planting seems unlikely to deliver any significant amount of N. The other process - chemigation by injecting the exhaust from a diesel-powered pump into the incoming irrigation water sounds better. Similar in fact to the way anhydrous ammonia is applied. Insofar as water is capable of absorbing gaseous N from the exhaust emissions and carrying it to the plant roots this should be workable, but still perhaps not capable of producing the full compliment of nutrients required. Probably more of a supplemental thing, used in addition to more traditional fertilizer applications.
Farming is tough work and often boring, and sometimes farmers turn to commonly available substances to get high to escape the boredom. Anyone want to help start a new rehab center in Kansas?