RT Journal Article
T1 Can Ammoniacal Nitrogen from Gold Mining Effluent Be a Promising Alternative for Fertilizing Boreal Forest Stands?
A1 Subedi, Anoj
A1 Robert, Émilie
A1 Braghiroli, Flavia Lega
A1 Montoro Girona, Miguel
AB Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant functioning, photosynthesis, and metabolic activities. In terrestrial settings, nitrogen is not always sufficiently available because its basic form (N2) must be fixed into other forms, such as nitrate and ammonium, to be usable by plants. Adding nitrogenous fertilizer to soils may provide a means of increasing forest productivity. Ammoniacal nitrogen (N-NH3), an effluent produced during gold extraction, requires mining companies to manage its long-distance and costly transportation offsite for disposal. Applying this nitrogenous effluent, in its treated form of ammonium sulfate (ammoniacal nitrogen from mine water was converted into ammonium sulfate locally), to regional forest stands could provide a cost-effective and more environmentally sound means of managing this waste product and enhance forest productivity. Here, we conducted greenhouse- and field-based experiments to evaluate ammonium sulfate fertilization on black spruce (Picea mariana) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana) seedling growth. We assigned five treatments, varying in terms of the fertilizer concentration and presence/absence of biochar, to seedlings in greenhouse trials. We also applied various concentrations of ammonium sulfate to an 8-year-old black spruce plantation in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Québec. We found that black spruce and jack pine seedlings experienced greater growth than the controls in terms of the stem diameter (32–44%), seedling height (21–49%), and biomass (86–154%). In the field experiment, we observed 37% greater volumetric growth in plots receiving medium-level fertilization than the control. Although nitrogen fertilization lowered the soil pH, essential nutrients increased to favor greater seedling growth. Thus, ammonium sulfate, derived from local mining effluent, appears to offer a suitable alternative for enriching nitrogen-limited boreal soils and increasing tree growth. This application could benefit both regional mining industries and forest management bodies.
PB MDPI
SN 2071-1050 (electrónico)
YR 2024
FD 2024-09
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/24114
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/24114
LA eng
NO Subedi, A., Robert, É., Braghiroli, F. L., & Montoro-Girona, M. (2024). Can Ammoniacal Nitrogen from Gold Mining Effluent Be a Promising Alternative for Fertilizing Boreal Forest Stands? In Sustainability (Vol. 16, Issue 17, p. 7683). MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177683
NO The funding for this study was obtained by H. Bouafif and ER from the Natural Sciences andEngineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (reference no.: 331020196). AS obtained fundingthrough graduate scholarships (reference no.: 323296) for internships at the College Centre forTechnology Transfer (CCTT) from Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Nature et Technologies (FRQNT).
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 1 jun 2026