Assessment of Two Solid Anaerobic Digestate Soil Amendments for Effects on Soil Quality and Biosolarization Efficacy Fernández Bayo, Jesús Dionisio Achmon, Yigal Harrold, Duff R. McCurry, Dlinca G. Hernandez, Katie Dahlquist-Willard, Ruth M. Stapleton, James J. VanderGheynst, Jean S. Simmons, Christopher W. Soil biosolarization Pest control Anaerobic Digestion This work was funded by the University of CaliforniaDavis Sustainability Research and Training Program and Diamond Developers (collaboration identification no. 201500335), California Department of Pesticide Regulation (grant agreement no. 14-PML-R004), and the National Science Foundation (CBET-1438694). Anaerobic digestion is an organic waste bioconversion process that produces biofuel and digestates. Digestates have potential to be applied as soil amendment to improve properties for crop production including phytonutrient content and pest load. Our objective was to assess the impact of solid anaerobic digestates on weed seed inactivation and soil quality upon soil biosolarization (a pest control technique that combines solar heating and amendment-induced microbial activity). Two solid digestates from thermophilic (TD) and mesophilic (MD) digesters were tested. The solarized TD-amended samples presented significantly higher mortality of Brassica nigra (71%, P = 0.032) than its equivalent incubated at room temperature. However, biosolarization with digestate amendment led to decreased weed seed mortality in certain treatments. The plant-available water, total C, and extractable P and K were significantly increased (P < 0.05) in the incubated amended soils. The results confirm the potential of digestates as beneficial soil amendments. Further studies are needed to elucidate the impacts of digestate stability on biosolarization efficacy and soil properties. 2026-02-11T08:18:56Z 2026-02-11T08:18:56Z 2017-04-14 journal article Fernández-Bayo, J.D., Achmon, Y., Harrold, D.R., McCurry, D.G., Hernandez, K., Dahlquist-Willard, R.M., Stapleton, J.J., VanderGheynst, J.S., Simmons, C.W. (2017) Assessment of Two Solid Anaerobic Digestate Soil Amendments for Effects on Soil Quality and Biosolarization Efficacy. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 65, 3434-3442. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b04816. 00218561 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/110848 10.1021/acs.jafc.6b04816 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ embargoed access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License ACS Publications