TRANSFORMATION OF BIORESOURCES WASTE INTO USEFUL SOIL RICHEDNUTRIENTS FOR CROPS YIELD ENHANCEMENT

Abstract

Development in technology and innovation has encouraged the exploration of bioresources waste in different research field for wealth creation. These bioresources waste constitutes environmental nuisance, however has important potentials which when converted into soil amendment tends to improve nutrients mobility without affecting the natural environmental conditions when compared to the negative impacts of chemical fertilizer. The aim of this work therefore is to transform ocw dung and jatropha cake waste into organic amendment for crop yield enhancement. The aim was achieved by producing the amendment from cow dung and jatropha cake as carrier through composting processes where 5 kg of the mixed waste was charged into a biodigester. Temperature, pH and moisture content were monitored throughout the process, and subsequently been converted into organic amendment after subjecting the matured compost through fermentation process. The produced soil amendment was subjected to biochemical analysis whose efficiency on the soil properties and plant germination index were investigated afterwards. The moisture content of the compost stabilizes at 50 % in which the temperature dropped from 50 OC to 25 OC at the maturity stage. The active microorganism identified in the produced amendment consist of bacteria and fungi with cell counts of 4.3 × 107 and 1.7 × 107 cell/g respectively, which enhanced the soil properties by improving its water holding capacity by 91 % and organic carbon by 84.5 %. The improved in the soil properties efficiently contributed to the average root length and shoot length of 1.46 and 5.66 cm respectively for organic amendment plant when compared to the control sample whose average values of root and shoot lengths were 0.3 and 0.6 cm respectively. It is therefore, concluded based on the investigation carried out that, bioresources wastes were successfully converted into useful organic amendment to improve soil properties.