Original Articles Open access

Design and effectiveness of an injection system for the application of liquid manure (slurry) to soil

Authors

Published
15 December 2025
Section
Original Articles
DOI
10.4081/jae.2025.1912

Abstract

Liquid manure is a rich source of nutrients for crops, but when applied by traditional methods (broadcast) it causes loss of important nutrients such as nitrogen by evaporation and leaching simultaneously causes environmental and groundwater pollution. In this study, a high-performance liquid manure injection tool (prototype) was designed, developed and evaluated under actual field conditions. The prototype injection system consists of a prototype liquid distributor wheel that injects the liquid subsurface at certain amounts and intervals without cultivating the soil. Since the liquid manure is injected subsurface, so does not remain on the soil surface, it does not need to be mixed, and alternative to other methods in terms of nitrogen loss and availability to the plant. Laboratory and field studies were conducted to explore this system in liquid manure application. The range of slurry application rates was 4000-20000 L ha-1, at the base of system pressure and forward speed. The trials to determine efficiency of system, image analysis methods were used to quantify the percentage of the surface area covered with manure, and ammonia emission rate were determined by employing a wind tunnel and a dynamic chamber. The results showed that injecting slurry reduced NH3 emissions most effectively to 70% compared to the traditional surface spreading method. No statistically significant effect of manure application depth on ammonia emission was observed. The manure cover decreased at used by injection system. The machine demonstrated its performance by successfully injecting liquid manure into the soil and preventing nitrogen losses since the fertilizer had minimal contact with the air.

Keywords

References

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