Composting
Composting is the natural process of 'rotting' or decomposition of organic matter by microorganisms under controlled conditions. Raw organic materials such as crop residues, animal wastes, food garbage, some municipal wastes and suitable industrial wastes, enhance their suitability for application to the soil as a fertilizing resource, after having undergone composting.
Compost is a rich source of organic matter. Soil organic matter plays an important role in sustaining soil fertility, and hence in sustainable agricultural production. In addition to being a source of plant nutrient, it improves the physico-chemical and biological properties of the soil. As a result of these improvements, the soil: (i) becomes more resistant to stresses such as drought, diseases and toxicity; (ii) helps the crop in improved uptake of plant nutrients; and (iii) possesses an active nutrient cycling capacity because of vigorous microbial activity. These advantages manifest themselves in reduced cropping risks, higher yields and lower outlays on inorganic fertilizers for farmers.
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Key Resource 01-01-2002 A composting toilet is any system that converts human waste into compost through the natural breakdown of organic matter. The photo above shows a composting toilet from the late 1800’s. Composting toilets provide a sanitary method to recycle human waste while conserving water and protecting the...
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This article is from ECHO Asia Note # 37. One of the great challenges of sustainable agriculture is the sourcing of adequate and affordable organic (carbon based) resources that can be used on-farm for the production of food and feed. Utilizing composts, manures, mulches, and other organic inputs...
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Introduction to Vermiculture There are over 6,000 species of worms in the world, many of them not even named or studied. However, the farmer is interested in two main categories of earthworms, namely “deep burrowers” and “surface dwellers”. Deep burrowers include the common garden worm or...
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- 20-01-2005 Composting is Fundamental #4. Compost will build up organic matter and create humus for your soil. The finished product of decomposition is called compost. Composting is a controlled process in which we capture a high percentage of nutrients from our crop residue and return it back to the soil in...
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15-06-2015 This article is from ECHO Asia Note #24 Hindi PDF
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01-08-2017 The decline or even loss of soil fertility is the major challenge faced by more and more farmers around the world in general and especially those in sub-Saharan Africa. Many causes, mainly anthropogenic, are at the origin of this situation. Despite the massive use of chemical fertilizers through...
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- This technology describes a combination of good practices for soil and water conservation that were introduced to coffee farmers in the central cattle corridor of Uganda, with aim to enhance their resilience to dry spells, pests and diseases, as part of the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA)...
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Trench beds are 1m wide and 2m long. They are dug to 1m deep then packed with dry grass/leaves, compost, manure and soil. Used in food-gardens. They make (create) highly fertile soils which can absorb and store water. Provide an immediately usable planting bed even on shallow or poor soils. Often...
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Healthy soil is teaming with life in the form of billions of microscopic soil organisms. A teaspoon of healthy soil can contain more soil microorganisms than there are people on earth. The soil microorganisms found in healthy, or “living soil,” have important functions including converting...
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The Johnson-Su Bioreactor method of creating compost is quite different from other composting methods in several respects. The most common commercial windrow composting processes are usually designed and operated for speed and maximum product flow. Unfortunately, this focus does not allow the...
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This 4 part video by former ECHO staff member, Larry Yarger, was produced in 2010. This is Part 1 Part 2 -https://youtu.be/Gj7rPHrxu1M Part 3 -https://youtu.be/UHcnOrY9Ww8 Part 4 -https://youtu.be/InUnYFrVNMo
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Blatticomposting is a new technique that uses cockroaches to convert human food wastes into compost. Of the 4000 or so species of cockroaches, less than 15 are pests of human dwellings. These species give cockroaches overall a bad reputation; all other species of cockroach are harmless, living...
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Compost can be used to improve the quality of your soil. You can use plant materials, animal manure and kitchen scraps to create compost. Compost will add nutrients and organic matter to your soil. This animation explains the process of creating and storing compost. Scientific Animations Without...
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Vegetable crops thrive in healthy soil. Farmers can improve the quality of their soil and provide nutrients for their plants by making and adding compost to their fields or planting beds. In this video produced by the World Vegetable Center for the VINESA project, researcherEmanuel Pallangyo...
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01-01-2021 Information from ECHO Network member Daryl Edwards from his work in Zimbabwe suggested that using quality compost containing 10% cow manure results in a maize harvest similar to that obtained with 100% cow manure. This could be significant to farmers who have small farm sizes and limited...
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Access Agriculture Training Video Small scale farmers can struggle to keep their soil healthy, and often resort to buying fertilisers to improve their yield, but with a bit of extra work to make compost, yield can be increased naturally and the soil improved year by year. To turn your rice straw...
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This section looks at the way in which soil quality can be maintained and improved through a number of techniques including the use of fertilizer, manure and compost.
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03-10-2017 There are many appropriate building technologies available. How environmentally friendly are they? Earthquake resistant? Typhoon resistant? How can we introduce new materials to a traditional construction culture? Why would we want to produce our own materials? How can we make production...
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24-03-2015 The Habari Maalum Tree Nursery, outside of Arusha, Tanzania, provides over 200,000 tree seedlings per year to the surrounding villages. Until recently, HM has relied upon forest soil collected from the Olmotonyi Forest on the lower slopes of Mt Meruto replenish their nursery. Increasingly, there...
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Composting is an attractive proposition for turning on-farm organic waste materials into a farm resource. However, farmers in many parts of the world, and especially in developing countries, are unable to make the best use of the composting opportunities available to them. This is because they...
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Compost is well known to be a good organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. It is a product derived from the decomposition of organic matter or agricultural wastes. In normal circumstances, it takes about four to five months to get compost from the composting process. However, a new technique of...
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ABSTRACT - Journal of Compost Science and Utilization, 2017 The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of application of different organic fertilizers (general organic fertilizer, GOF; biogas residue, BR; refined organic fertilizer, ROF) as compared to no fertilizer on the composition of...
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ABSTRACT - Journal of Composting Science and Utilization, 2017 Tropical acid soils are highly weathered as they exist under tropical environment with high rainfall and temperature throughout the year, which affects nitrogen availability. Soil organic nitrogen is important in estimating soil...
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Coffee grounds are a great addition to the garden and compost pile. Help to recycle this great organic resource and reduce the amount of organics going to the landfill! Some information about coffee grounds: Coffee grounds are about 2% nitrogen by volume. Grounds are not acidic; the acid in...
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ABSTRACT, FFTC In Japan charcoal has been used for a long time as environmental improver, soil improver in a firm, water purification material and odor adsorbent. It was reported that biochar has proliferation effect of symbiosis microorganisms such as root nodule bacteria and mycorrhiza in farm...
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Sheet composting is an ancient technique that has many practical applications today. Also referred to as lasagna composting or sheet mulching, sheet composting is a cold composting method that has been used by people around the world for generations. It is an excellent way to convert grass to...
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13-02-2019 Session: The productivity of garden land depends on soil fertility, water and climate. Compost is an excellent resource to increase water holding capacity in the first place and to provide nutrients to the soil. Recent trends have introduced other techniques and key words for organic farming...
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The circular economy offers an unparalleled opportunity. It’s good for the economy, good for society and good for the planet. Supporting the transition would save lives and create employment, accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and reducing the tension between lifting...
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18-06-2013 Everything you need to know to turn your garden and kitchen scraps into "black gold" Farmers and horticulturists have long understood the benefits of compost to their soil and plants. Compost provides important nutrients; offers habitat for beneficial fungi, earthworms, and other creatures; and...
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Abstract, Journal of the NACAA, 2014 The sustainability and profitability of many agricultural systems can be enhanced through the utilization of inoculum of arbuscular mycorrhizal [AM] fungi. Inocula are commercially available, but inoculum can also be produced on-farm in mixtures of compost and...
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Hugelkultur, pronounced Hoo-gul-culture, means hill culture or hill mound. Instead of putting branches, leaves and grass clippings in bags by the curbside for the bin men... build a hugel bed. Simply mound logs, branches, leaves, grass clippings, straw, cardboard, petroleum-free newspaper,...
- Composting is nature’s way to recycle. Composting happens. It’s simply the slow, natural decomposition of organics. Composting at home is the controlled and faster decomposition of organics such as yard trimmings and food waste that you and your family generate. Microorganisms break down this...
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In modern olive mills, the most common method for extracting olive oil from the olive paste is two-phase decanter. Because the two-phase extraction system is less complicated, consumes less energy and yields higher quality olive oil, there is approximately 90% olive mills in Spain using this...
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Convener R. Ortga Blu Editors R. Ortega Blu, M.M. Martínez S., P. Ospina S. Publication date 27 March 2015 ISBN 978-94-62610-66-8 ISSN 0567-7572(print) 2406-6168(electronic) Number of articles 28 Volumes 1 Place Santiago, Chile
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Compost can be used to improve the quality of your soil. You can use plant materials, animal manure and kitchen scraps to create compost. Compost will add nutrients and organic matter to your soil. This animation explains the process of creating and storing compost. Scientific Animations Without...
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Composting is the natural process of 'rotting' or decomposition of organic matter by microorganisms under controlled conditions. Raw organic materials such as crop residues, animal wastes, food garbage, some municipal wastes and suitable industrial wastes, enhance their suitability for...
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Convener J. Biala Editors J. Biala, R. Prange, M. Raviv Publication date 25 January 2014 ISBN 978-94-62610-04-0 ISSN 0567-7572(print) 2406-6168(electronic) Number of articles 76 Volumes 1 Place Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
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Access Agriculture Training Video Compost is more powerful than manure. What is less known is that the micro-organisms in compost attack striga seeds in the soil. Compost also decreases the amount of striga that will sprout, and reduces its negative effect on cereal crops. Let us look at how...
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Access Agriculture Training Video Coir pith degrades so slowly that it is often considered useless for agriculture. But well-decomposed coir pith can absorb five times its weight in water. So when applied to your soil, it can hold water much better. To prepare compost out of coir pith you need to...
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Compost can be used to improve the quality of your soil. You can use plant materials, animal manure and kitchen scraps to create compost. Compost will add nutrients and organic matter to your soil. This animation explains the process of creating and storing compost. Scientific Animations Without...
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01-07-2022 Coffee silverskin is high in nutrients, but contains recalcitrant and phytotoxic compounds, limiting its use as a mulch or soil amendment. Fortunately, composting can reduce or eliminate these problems. Composition Figure 1. Components of the coffee cherry. (Narita and Inouye 2014) Coffee...
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20-01-2021 The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is a broad alliance of civil society actors who are part of the struggle for food sovereignty and agroecology in Africa. AFSA brings together farmers, pastoralists, fishers, indigenous peoples, faith groups, women’s movements, youth, and consumer...
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01-01-1980 This booklet has been compiled to give information about how compost can be applied in the tropics and subtropics. It gives a simple description of the processes taking place in the soil and during composting. Practical suggestions are given for constructing a compost heap. A few selected compost...
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The largest by products of coconut is coconut husk from which coir fibre is extracted. This extraction process generates a large quantity of dusty material called coir dust or coir pith. Large quantity of coir waste of about 7.5 million tones is available annually form coir industries in India....
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The goal of Composting in the Classroom is to provide high school science teachers with the background needed to engage students in research focusing on composting. There are a number of reasons why composting research lends itself well to the classroom setting. First, composting of yard wastes...
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Key Resource 01-01-1975 This complete and informative text tells exactly how to get started in in the vermiculture business.
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19-10-1994 Recovery of city waste Earthworms as credit Organic wastes hijacked Recycle or pollute Micro-organisms Recycling urban night soil Modified anaerobic composting Drawing bioresource flows