Bioconversion of lawn waste amended with kitchen waste and buffalo dung in to value-added vermicompost using Eisenia foetida to alleviate landfill burden

Seaweed (Gracilariopsis funicularis) biochar incorporation into a goat manure-food waste vermicompost for optimized vermi-degradation and nutrient release

“…According to results the study, the alkalinity of the pH is probably from the materials used which are goat manure and food waste which had a pH of 9 and not due to the application rate of biochar. The increase in pH across all treatments could be attributed to the release of ammonia and calcium as suggested by Karwal and Kaushik (2020) and this has been attributed to earthworm's activity.…”

“…The incorporation of biochar did not in uence the trend of change in C/N ratio as all the treatments followed the same trend. C/N ratio is the key indicator of biodegradation during the vermicomposting process (Karwal and Kaushik 2020) and C/N of less than 20 has been reported to represent mature compost though a C/N ratio of below 15 represent a much more stable compost (Bernal et al 2009). In our study it was observed that the treatments that had biochar incorporated at 6 to 8% resulted in much more stable compost though even the control resulted in mature compost with a C/N ratio of below 20.…”

“…In our study it was observed that the treatments that had biochar incorporated at 6 to 8% resulted in much more stable compost though even the control resulted in mature compost with a C/N ratio of below 20. The decrease in C/N ratio may be due to the accumulation of nitrogenous compounds, the release of CO 2 by earthworm metabolism and enzyme-microbe induced decomposition of organic matter (Bhat et al 2015;Karwal and Kaushik 2020;Alidadi et al 2016;Zhi-wei 2019). This was also observed in a study by Ravindran and Mnkeni (2016) who reported that C/N ratio decreases may be due to a higher loss of carbon accompanied by an increase in nitrogen during vermicomposting of waste paper and chicken manure.…”

Seaweed (Gracilariopsis funicularis) biochar incorporation into a goat manure–food waste vermicompost for optimized vermidegradation and nutrient release

“…According to the results of the study, the alkalinity of the pH is probably from the materials used which are goat manure and food waste which had a pH of 9 and not due to the application rate of biochar. The increase in pH across all treatments could be attributed to the release of ammonia and calcium as suggested by Karwal and Kaushik (2021), and this has been attributed to earthworm activity. Furthermore, the pH increase has also been reported to be attributed to the increase in ash formation and mineralization of organic nitrogen as a result of microbial activities (Jain et al, 2018).…”

“…The incorporation of biochar did not influence the trend of change in a C/N ratio as all treatments followed the same trend. The C/N ratio is the key indicator of biodegradation during the vermicomposting process (Karwal and Kaushik, 2021), and C/N of <20 has been reported to represent mature vermicompost through a C/N ratio of below 15 representing a much more stable compost (Bernal et al, 2009). In our study, it was observed that the treatments that had biochar incorporated at 6-8% resulted in much more stable vermicompost though even the control resulted in mature vermicompost with a C/N ratio of below 20.…”