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Promoting antibiotics degradation via application of organic fertilizers

  

  1. (1 College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; 2 Shaoxing Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shaoxing 312003, China)
  • Online:2015-03-25 Published:2015-03-31

Abstract: A soil culture experiment was carried out to study the effects of different organic fertilizer rates (05%, 10%) on the degradation of four antibiotics and the influence on antibiotics uptake by vegetable plants from soil. The tested four antibiotics were oxytetracycline, enrofloxacin, sulfamethazine, and tylosin, with an initial pollution concentration of 25 mg·kg-1 soil, respectively. The results showed that the application of organic fertilizer could significantly (P<005) increase antibiotics degradation in soil at early stage during the incubation experiment. The degradation rate of the antibiotics increased with increasing application amount of organic fertilizer. At the eighth day of incubation experiment, application of 1% organic fertilizer increased degradation rates of soil oxytetracycline, enrofloxacin, sulfamethazine, and tylosin, compared with those without organic fertilizer application. The degradation rates of four antibiotics decreased in the order of sulfamethazine>enrofloxacin>oxytetracycline>tylosin. Application of organic fertilizer could reduce the uptake of antibiotics by vegetable plants. Concentrations of oxytetracycline, enrofloxacin, sulfamethazine, and tylosin in plants grown in the soil with 1% organic fertilizer application were 678%, 663%, 494% and 489% lower, respectively, than those without organic fertilizer application. Compared with the control soil in which no antibiotics were added, the biomass of vegetable plants grown in the antibiotics contaminated soil declined when no organic fertilizer was applied. However, there was no significant difference in biomass of vegetable plants among the control and organic fertilizer treatments, which indicated the beneficial effects of organic fertilizers.

Key words: antibiotics, antibiotics degradation, organic fertilizer