Insect Farming Initiative Webinar Series

Insects Frass as Fertilizer

We have sessions planned for Friday, May 30, 2025 at 9 a.m. on Zoom. Register to receive the Zoom link.

Schedule

9:00 a.m. Frass and furious: Valorizing insect frass as a sustainable fertilizer and beyond

Dr. Christos Athanassiou

Professor, Entomology, University of Thessaly, Greece

Christos Athanassiou wearing a purple shirt

Insect frass has been regarded as an important soil amendment or fertilizer. However, there are still plenty of things to be done regarding its utilization for plant growth, despite the fact that it has been proved as a biostimulant that can enhance plant health. Nevertheless, apart from plant health, insect frass can also serve for plenty of other purposes, ranging from food attractant in insect traps to insect diet substance for sterile insect technique strategies. As insect farming is getting bigger, the amounts of frass are expected to be drastically increased, and are expected to play a pivotal role in plant growth in the near future.

9:20 a.m. Frass facts: Knowns and unknowns for soil and plant health

Dr. Helen Amorim

Director Experiment Station, Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Arkansas

Headshot of Helen Amorim

Frass is an emerging biofertilizer that can enhance soil fertility and replace/complement synthetic fertilizers with no losses in crop yields and nutritional value. This presentation will include a summary of the research results from the USDA-ARS Poultry Production and Product Safety Research (PPPSRU) Frass working group. Briefly, frass has 2-times more C and N than poultry litter, with no heavy metals and foodborne pathogens. Feed source, agrifood waste, and insect species can impact frass chemical quality. In forage systems, substantial improvements in soil fertility were observed after 2 years of frass applications, with 2-3 times increases in soil C, N, P, and K. Application of low frass rates (5-6 Mg ha-1) led to similar forage and crop yields and 2-4 times greater nutrient use efficiency than poultry litter and synthetic fertilizers. Reductions of 50% in soybean leaf damage were observed after frass application. Future research includes nutrient mineralization tests, and economic analyses to identify economic feasibility of frass compared to other organic and synthetic nutrient sources.

9:40 a.m. Frass, An Industry Perspective

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