Effects of harvest regime and water depth on nutrient recovery from swine wastewater by growing Spirodela oligorrhiza.

Harvest regime and water depth were investigated to determine their effects on nutrient recovery from swine wastewater by a Spirodela oligorrhiza system. The results show that harvesting less duckweed at shorter intervals favored nutrient removal and total biomass production. Harvesting 20% of duckweed twice a week led to 66.3 and 109.4% higher total nitrogen and total phosphorus removals, respectively, and a duckweed production of 20.0 g fresh biomass/m2 x d--39.6% higher than that of harvesting 80% of duckweed once every 4 weeks. The water depth of duckweed system was of great importance to total nutrient removal. At the water depth of 40 cm, total nitrogen and total phosphorus removals were 2.05 and 2.16 times higher, respectively, than those at the water depth of 10 cm. However, because of the larger amount of nutrients in a deeper system, it took a longer time for the nutrient concentrations to decrease.