RECYCLING OF COTTON STALKS WITH RICE STRAW TO COMPOST AS FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY TO THE ENVIRONMENT

Mohamed, Amal S.; Abdel Wahab, A. F.; El-Etr, Wafaa M.

doi:10.21608/jacb.2010.88782

RECYCLING OF COTTON STALKS WITH RICE STRAW TO COMPOST AS FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY TO THE ENVIRONMENT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Cotton Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center - Giza – Egypt

² Soils, Water and Environ. Res. Institute, ARC - Giza – Egypt

10.21608/jacb.2010.88782

Abstract

Two aerobic trapezoidal heaps of compost were practiced to investigate the value of bio-enrichment of chopped plants residues (cotton stalks and rice straw) through inoculation the mixture of these residues and some organic and mineral amendments with lignocellulytic fungi during the active composting in relation to their capacity to accelerate lignocellulose degradation. Also, some plant growth promoting rhizobactria were applied to the composted materials at maturity stage to study their ability to improve the biological and nutritional quality of the produced compost. Results of monitoring the composting process exerted that the physico-chemicals and microbiological properties of the composted materials were developed with progressing of the process until 90 days. However, bio-enriched heap exhibited more acceleration than unenriched one with regard to reduce the organic carbon and C/N ratio. In addition, the maturity indices exerted acceptable values for generation index, CO₂ – evolution, dehydrogenase activity and ratio of NH⁺₄/NO^-₃ as an indicator to nitrification process.