Use of Flyash in Agriculture: A Way to Improve Soil Fertility and its Productivity

摘要

Fly Ash (FA)-a coal combustion residue of thermal power plants has been regarded as a problematic solid waste all over the world. Disposal of high amount of fly-ash from thermal power plants absorbs huge amount of water, energy and land area by ash ponds. Therefore, fly-ash management would remain a great concern of the century. However, several studies proposed that FA can be used as a soil ameliorate that may improve physical, chemical and biological properties of the degraded soils and is a sourceof readily available plant micro-and macro-nutrients. Practical value of FA in agriculture as an eco-friendly and economic fertilizer or soil amendments can be established after repeated field experiments for each type of soil to confirm its quality andsafety. Fly-ash has great potentiality in agriculture due to its efficacy in modification of soil health and crop performance. The high concentration of elements (K, Na, Zn, Ca, Mg and Fe) in fly-ash increases the yield of many agricultural crops. But the use of fly-ash in agriculture is limited compare to other sector. An exhaustive review of numerous studies of last four decades took place in this study, which systematically covers the importance, scope and apprehension regarding utilization of fly-ash in agriculture. This study also identified some areas, like soil fertility and its response on cereal oil seed and vegetable crops. Agricultural lime application contributes to global warming as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumesthat all the carbon in agricultural lime is finally released as CO_2 to the atmosphere. It is expected that use of fly-ash instead of lime in agriculture can reduce net CO_2 emission and also reduce global warming.