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An experiment was conducted to quantify ammonia (NH3) losses during food waste composting and to evaluate the effectiveness of mature aerobic sewage sludge/olive pomace compost and phillipsite/chabazite zeolite in reducing NH3 losses during composting. Food waste amended with chopped barley straw was composted for a period of 68 days in three in-vessel reactors. The mature aerobic sewage sludge/olive pomace compost and the zeolite were placed on a mesh tray above the waste mixture in the first and second reactors, respectively. The third reactor contained straw-amended food waste only and served as a control. It was found that the mature aerobic sewage sludge/olive pomace compost reduced NH3-N losses by 36% of initial TN through nitrifying volatilized NH3 into nitrate (NO3-). Zeolite reduced NH3-N losses by 41% of initial total nitrogen due to adsorption of volatilized NH3. The use of mature compost in conservation of nitrogen is a promising cheap method; however, it needs further optimization and research.

Two lentil cultivars, UJ1 and ILL, have been introduced into the farming system of the Middle East. The influence of P on their potential to fix N2 under drought conditions is lacking. A factorial field experiment was carried out at Taibeh (500 mm yr−1) and Muru (300 mm yr−1), where three rates of P, two lentil cultivars and barley were included. Phosphorus was the main plot, while lentil and barley were grown randomly in the subplots. A typical experiment treated with unlabeled 100 kg N ha−1 with similar P rates was conducted at the Taibeh site. Both cultivars on each site did not differ significantly at different levels of P regarding the biological yield. At each P level, both cultivars derived similar nitrogen percentages from atmosphere (per cent Ndfa), except at Taibeh with the intermediate rate of P, where ILL derived (66.1 %) compared to UJ1 (40.3 %). At Taibeh, the average percentages of N in the grain and straw were 4.17 % and 1.14%, respectively, and were significantly higher than at the Muru site (3.38 %, 1.29 %). The relatively drought‐like conditions at Muru reduced percentage Ndfa to ∼28 but this was increased by P addition. Nitrogen addition reduced partitioning of N (N index) from ∼0.70 % to ∼0.55 % and decreased P percentage in the grain from ∼0.40 % to ∼0.31 % and in straw from 0.11% to 0.07 % due to early maturation. In spite of the indigenous Rhizobium efficiency to fix N2, only 52.0 % and 42.3 % of the plant N was derived from the atmosphere at Taibeh and Muru, respectively, causing depletion of soil N reservoir.

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