Notice of RetractionEffects of the Discharge of Potato Pulp on Farmland Soil Fertility: Farmland Soil Contaminated by Potato Pulp

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper.

The presenting author of this paper has the option to appeal this decision by contacting TPII@ieee.org.

With the rapid development of the starch industry, the discharge of potato pulp-an industrial waste produced during extraction of starch from potatoes-has increased each year and has become an environmental pollution problem that cannot be neglected. In order to realize the comprehensive utilization of potato pulp and protect field ecological environment, it is necessary to illuminate the effects of the discharge of potato pulp on soil ecology and plant growth. This work reports the results of the soil-ecological studies, in addition to the results of related planting experiments and the analysis of plant nutrition. The results indicated that although the discharge of potato pulp did not change the fundamental chemical composition of the soil, it decreased the soil pH and density and caused a decline in the soil fertility, resulting in a significant impact on the soil ecosystem and plant growth over a relatively short period (generally not more than a year). Actually, remediation of contaminated soil could probably be carried out efficiently through appropriate farming technology (e.g., tillage and fertilization) if the potato pulp could be used as feed and energy, or converted to some other useful form that can be moved from the farmland soil surface in time; however, it would be difficult to restore the contaminated soil if the duration of contamination is very long.