Page 126 - Agroforestry system - book inner (final corrected) - 9.-3-21_Neat

National level e-symposium on “Agroforestry system for augmenting livestock
productivity and empowering resource poor rural farmers”

A handful of activator was broad casted as per treatment schedule to speed up the decomposition process.
The compost container was covered tightly. Regularly the compost was moistened. The compost was used
after 60 days.

Results and Discussion
The effect of Gliricidia sepium green biomass on moisture content, pH and organic matter (OM) of
compost is presented in table 1.

Table 1. Effect of Gliricidia sepium green biomass on moisture content, pH, organic matter
(OM) and NPK content of compost

Moisture Organic matter
Treatments pH N (%) P (%) K (%)
(%) (%)
T 1 68.7 4.6 4.3 0.39 0.05 0.09

T 2 69.3 5.8 4.4 0.41 0.08 0.43
T 3 69.7 6.2 4.5 0.51 0.13 0.44
T 4 71.5 6.8 4.9 0.50 0.16 0.51

The compost of T treatment had the highest moisture content at 71.5% followed by the T treatment at
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69.7%. The T treatment had a moisture content of 69.3%, while the control treatment had 68.7%. Moisture
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content of compost should be between 35% and 60% (Darlington, 2007) for optimal product handling and
transport. Ideally, the pH of any product, particularly compost, should be neutral to slightly acid (6.0 – 7.5)
and efforts should be made to control it if it exceeds about 8.5 (Ahmad, 2010). A pH in the 6 to 8 pH range
indicates more mature compost. The pH of compost derived in this study was as low as 4.6 to as high as 6.8.
The control and T treatments were acidic while the T and T treatments were slightly acidic. Composts with
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very low pH (<4.0) should be used with caution since the low pH can be an indication of poor composting
practices which result in the formation of potentially toxic organic acids.
Organic matter is the measure of carbon based materials in the compost. It is an important source of
carbon that improves soil and plant efficiency by improving soil physical properties, providing a source of
energy to beneficial organisms, and enhancing the reservoir of soil nutrients. The T treatment organic matter
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(4.9 %) was higher than the control. The control treatment was identical with that of all other treatments.

T treatment showed better quality compost in terms of the nutrient content followed by T , T and least
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the T which was relatively lower in quality. All the composts enriched with Gliricidia sepium green biomass
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were superior over the control based on the analysis.
Conclusion
Results of this study showed that increasing the amount of green biomass increases the organic matter
content of crop residue compost, improves the pH value to almost neutral state, and produce compost with
relatively high moisture content at harvest. Increasing the volume of green biomass increases the weight of
harvestable crop residue compost. Green biomass-enriched crop residue compost with good amount of plant

Institute of Animal Nutrition, Centre for Animal Production Studies, TANUVAS
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development 107