Effects of coal fly ash‐amended composts on the yield and elemental uptake by plants

Abstract The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of coal fly ash‐amended composts for use as an alternate manure for agricultural crops. “Home‐made”; organic compost was mixed in various proportions with fine fly ash collected from Savannah River Site (SRS 484‐D), and allowed to decompose for two weeks while the mixture was kept wet. Water extracts from the amended composts were analyzed for selected major and trace elements. These amended composts were mixed with sifted sandy loam soil in a predetermined optimum ratio of 1: 3 and used to grow corn and sorghum plants. It was shown that fly ash additions to “home‐made”; compost facilitated efficient plant utilization of nutrients when 20–40% fly ash in compost was applied to the soil. The maximum dry shoot yields correlated with the higher concentrations of K, Ca and N and lower concentrations of B in the amended compost treatment.