China’s agriculture has long faced three major problems: excessive chemical fertilizer application, residual mulch film pollution, and low utilization rates of livestock and poultry manure. Excessive fertilizer input leads to soil acidification and compaction, and nutrient use efficiency continues to decline. Traditional polyethylene (PE) mulch film is difficult to degrade, and its year-by-year accumulation forms microplastic pollution, damaging soil microbial communities and arable land health. At the same time, livestock waste such as cow manure is large in volume and widely distributed, but its resource utilization pathways are limited, and crop-livestock cycling is not smooth. The green transformation of agriculture urgently needs integrated technologies that simultaneously ensure stable yields, reduce fertilizer use, reduce plastic pollution, and improve soil fertility.
Recently, Yong HOU and others at China Agricultural University published a research paper titled “Manure-based slurry film promotes reduced fertilizer input through microbially-mediated nutrient activation mechanism and its life cycle assessment” in ENGINEERING Agriculture (DOI: 10.15302/J-FASE-2026671). Based on field experiments and life cycle assessment of using manure-based slurry film (MSF) to replace traditional PE mulch film for growing silage maize, the study revealed the core mechanism by which MSF activates nutrients through regulating soil microbial communities, maintains yield under a 30% fertilizer reduction, and achieves significant yield increases under a 15% reduction. It also clarified the environmental impact characteristics and green optimization directions of MSF.
Existing technologies for improving fertilizer use efficiency each have limitations: fertilizer synergists are costly and may affect soil microorganisms; deep fertilizer application equipment and labor inputs are large, making large-scale promotion difficult; combined organic-inorganic application has good effects but high application costs for farmers and insufficient practicality. Although biodegradable mulch film can alleviate residual film pollution, it generally suffers from low cost-effectiveness, poor stability, and unclear life-cycle environmental benefits. At the same time, there is a lack of efficient mechanisms that coordinate manure resource utilization, fertilizer reduction, and soil improvement, and there are still bottlenecks in connecting existing technologies with industry.
This study prepared biodegradable MSF using cow manure as raw material. Field experiments showed that, compared with PE film, MSF still maintained silage maize yield under a 30% fertilizer reduction, and significantly increased yield under a 15% reduction. Its core mechanism lies in microbially mediated nutrient activation and oxygen supply advantages: MSF continuously releases soluble organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients, promoting the proliferation of functional bacteria such as Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, increasing the abundance of nitrifying bacteria, and reviving potassium-solubilizing bacteria. This forms a positive feedback loop of “nutrient input—functional bacteria activation—effective release of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—improved fertilizer use efficiency.” Unlike the physical barrier of PE film, MSF promotes root growth at the seedling stage and strengthens phosphorus and potassium supply during the grain-filling stage through biological pathways, thereby ensuring dry matter accumulation under reduced fertilizer conditions. This provides a new approach to fertilizer reduction that differs from traditional physical mulching.
MSF uses livestock and poultry manure as raw material to prepare biodegradable mulch film, connecting three key links: crop-livestock cycling, fertilizer reduction, and residual film pollution reduction. While ensuring crop yield, it reduces chemical fertilizer and plastic mulch film inputs at the source, improves soil microecology, enhances functional bacterial abundance, and optimizes arable land quality. However, MSF still has certain limitations. Its production process involves relatively high energy and water consumption, and its current environmental impact is greater than that of PE film. Large-scale application still requires solving problems of process simplification and energy efficiency improvement.
Nevertheless, the study clarifies the microbial enhancement mechanism and full life-cycle environmental costs, providing a scientific basis for technology iteration, large-scale production, and industrial application. It promotes the upgrading of agricultural inputs toward low-cost, biodegradable, and resource-recyclable directions, helping to build an efficient, low-carbon, and clean farmland production system and achieve coordinated development of food security and ecological security.
DOI: 10.15302/J-FASE-2026671