Abstract
Poultry droppings, neem cake, castor cake, jatropha cake and grass clippings were used separately as organic nitrogen additives to decrease the high C:N ratio of wheat straw. Composting was carried out aerobically in presence of fungal consortium developed by including Aspergillus awamori, Aspergillus nidulans, Trichoderma viride and Phanerochaete chrysosporium. The degraded product was characterized to assess the technical viability of organic nitrogen supplements as well as fungal consortium in improving the quality of compost and hastening the process of decomposition of high lignocellulolytic waste. Evaluation of maturity showed that mixture of wheat straw, poultry dropping and jatropha cake had the lowest C:N ratio of 10:1, the highest humic acid fraction of 3.15%, the lowest dehydrogenase activity and a germination index exceeding 80% in 60 days of decomposition. Inoculated and grass clipping amended wheat straw–poultry dropping mixture resulted in compost with highest humus content of 11.8% and C:N ratio of 13.5, humic acid fraction of 2.84% and germination index of 59.66%. Fungal consortium was effective in improving the humus content of all the composted mixtures. In some treatments, germination index could not be correlated with C:N ratio. Non edible oil seed cake supplemented substrate mixtures did not respond to fungal inoculation as far as C:N ratio was concerned.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allison FE (1973) Soil organic matter and its role in crop production. Development in soil science, vol 3. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Badrinath KVS, Kiranchand TR, Krishna Prasad V (2006) Agriculture crop burning in the Indo-Gangetic plains—a study using IRS-P6AWiFS satellite data. Curr Sci 91:1085–1089
Bahl GS, Aulakh MS (2002) Crop residues as renewable plant nutrients resources. Agriculture Tribune Chandigarh, India, pp 1–2
Blanco MJ, Almendros G (1995) Evaluation of parameters related to chemical and agrobiological qualities of wheat straw composts including different additives. Bioresour Technol 51:125–134. doi:10.1016/0960-8524(94)00125-K
Bernal MP, Paredes C, Mondero MA, Cegarra J (1998) Maturity and stability parameters of composts prepared with a wide range of organic wastes. Bioresour Technol 63:91–99. doi:10.1016/S0960-8524(97)00084-9
Canarutto S, Petruzzelli G, Lubrano L, Vigna-Guidi G (1991) How composting affects heavy metal content. Biocycle 32:48–50
Casida LE, Klein DA, Santoro T (1964) Soil dehydrogenase activity. Soil Sci 98:371–376. doi:10.1097/00010694-196412000-00004
Dickman SR, Bray RH (1940) Colorimetric determination of phosphorus. Ind Eng Chem Anal Ed 12:665–668. doi:10.1021/ac50151a013
Edwards CA, Bohlen PJ (1996) Biology and ecology of earthworms, 3rd edn. Chapman and Hall, London
Gaind S, Gaur AC (1990) Influence of temperature on the efficiency of phosphate solubilising microorganisms. Indian J Microbiol 30:305–310
Gaind S, Nain L (2007) Chemical and biological properties of wheat soil in response to paddy straw incorporation and its biodegradation by fungal inoculants. Biodegradation 18(4):495–503
Gaind S, Nain L, Goyal D (2006a) Trace element characterization for quality evaluation of compost from amended paddy straw inoculated with fungal consortium. Indian J Microbiol 46:127–132
Gaind S, Pandey AK, Nain L (2006b) Microbial biomass, P nutrition and enzyme activities of wheat soil in response to phosphorus enriched organic and inorganic manures. J Environ Sci Health Part B Pestic Food Contam Agric Wastes 41B(2):177–187
Gaur AC, Sadasivam KV, Mathur RS, Magu SP (1982) Role of mesophilic fungi in composting. Agric Wastes 4:453–460
Golueke CG (1981) Principle of biological resource recovery. Biocycle 22:36–40
Grossl PR, Inskeep WP (1991) Precipitation of dicalcium phosphate dihydrate in the presence of organic acid. Soil Sci Soc Am J 55:670–675
Hirai MF, Chanyasak V, Kubolta H (1983) A standard measurement for compost maturity. Biocycle 24:54–56
Iglesias-Jimenez E, Perez Garcia G (1992) Determination of maturity indices for city refuse composts. Agric Ecosyst Environ 38:331–343
Jackson ML (1973) Soil chemical analysis. Prentice Hall of India Pvt.Ltd., New Delhi, 660 pp
Kononova MM (1966) Soil organic matter, its nature, its role in soil formation and soil fertility. Pergamon, Oxford, 325 pp
Kuwatsuka S, Shindo H (1973) Behavior of phenolic substances in decaying process of plants. I. Identification and quantitative determination of phenolic acids in rice straw and its decayed product by gas chromatography. Soil Sci Plant Nutr 19:219–227
Lindsay WL, Norvell WA (1978) Development of DTPA test for zinc, iron, manganese and copper. Soil Sci Soc Am J 42:421–428
Nair MG (2006) Technology convergence for the next green revolution. In: 36th Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lecture at IARI, New Delhi, India, 8 Feb
Narang RS, Virmani SM (2001) Rice wheat cropping systems of Indo-Gangetic Plain of India. Consortium paper series 11. Rice wheat consortium for Indogangetic Plains, New Delhi, India, pp 1–37
Navarro AF, Cegarra J, Roig A, Garcia D (1993) Relationships between organic matter and carbon content of organic wastes. Bioresour Technol 44:203–207
Oliveira ND, Felix SP, Da Matta RA, Machado OL (2007) Chemical treatment to inactivation of castor cake’s allergen. In: International union of biochemistry and molecular biology held at Salvador da Bahia in Brazil, 21–25 May 2007
Panse VG, Sukhatme PV (1978) Statistical methods for agriculture workers. ICAR, New Delhi, 358 pp
Raviv M, Medina S, Shamir Y (1999) Cocomposting—a method, to improve results of poultry manure composting. Compost Sci Util 7:6–16
Tiquia SM (2005) Microbiological parameters as indicator of compost maturity. J Appl Microbiol 99:816–828
Veeken A, Nierop K, de Wilde V, Hamelers B (2000) Characterization of NaOH extracted humic acids during composting of biowaste. Bioresour Technol 72:33–41
Walkley A, Black IA (1934) An examination of Degtareff method for determining soil organic matter and a proposed modification of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Sci 27:29–38
WERL (2000) Compost quality in America, technical document. Woods End Research Laboratory Inc, USA, pp 30–42
Westerman PW, Bicudo JR (2005) Management consideration for organic waste use in agriculture. Bioresour Technol 96(2):215–221
Wood WA, Bhat KM (1988) Methods for measuring cellulose activities. Methods Enzymol 160:87–112
Zucconi F, Forte M, Monaco A, Bertoldi M (1981) Biological evaluation of compost maturity. Biocycle 22(4):27–29
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gaind, S., Nain, L. & Patel, V.B. Quality evaluation of co-composted wheat straw, poultry droppings and oil seed cakes. Biodegradation 20, 307–317 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-008-9223-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-008-9223-1