Geochemical and Biological Finger Printing Of Vermicompost

Abstract

Vermicomposts of various feed substrates are attempted around the world, firstly to mitigate the newlineraising problem of solid waste disposal, secondly to find alternate to costly and or harmful newlineinorganic fertilizers. The aim of this work is to analyse geochemical and biological profile of the newlinevermicompost of three different substrates in practice. The results indicate that multifeed newlinebiomethanisation slurry can be used as a raw material in vermicomposting similar to cow dung newlineand press mud. These vermicomposts were rich in NPK and their C/N ratio was below 20 which newlinespecify their agronomic importance as manure. They also improved the properties of soil and the newlineability of the plant to have access to the nutrients as evident from the observed increase in the newlinefunction and growth of the plants treated with vermicomposts. The TGA and FT-IR results also newlineconfirmed the complete mineralization of the vermicompost and indicated it as mature. newlineVermicomposting showed significantly higher bacterial diversity than the composting. This newlinefinding suggests the degradation and stabilization processes during composting. The dominant newlinepopulations like Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria played major role in the transformation of newlineorganic wastes despite more microbial populations were involved in the vermicomposting newlineprocess. Growth and multiplication of earthworms were found to be more in the vermicomposts newlineof biomethanisation slurry and cow dung. newlineOn the other hand, divergence in bacterial community structures, particularly the high abundance newlineof unclassified and uncultured bacteria in vermicomposting, could be attributed to different newlinefactors. Therefore, future studies can be focused to elucidate the role of functional newlinemicroorganisms in composting and vermicomposting processes.