Role Of Substrate Particle Size On Vermicomposting Of Pre-Cooked Vegetable Market Waste

Abstract

Past studies report that pre-composting of waste is highly required and 10-15 cm of substrate depth is optimum for conventional vermicomposting, which leads to encroachment of large land area and long time in the process.  Keeping this as a core problem, an attempt was made to accelerate and digest the high volume of waste by modifying the conventional vermicomposting to engineered vermicomposting.  In the engineered process, the substrate depth was raised to a maximum of 30 cm and elimination of pre-composting by pre-processing (chopping, pulverizing, stocking, and drying) the waste. The study also aims in determining the ideal substrate particle size distribution for vermicomposting by experimenting with five different substrate particle mix.  Pre-processed waste were sieved using of IS sieves for extracting the substrate particles of different sizes (less than 1.7 mm,  between 2.36 mm and 1.7 mm, between 4.75 and 2.36 mm, and between 6.30 mm and 4.75 mm).  Then the sieved particles were mixed at six different combinations (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6) and then vermicomposted (E. fetida).  Results revealed that vermi bin loaded with T3 and T4 combinations produced good volume reduction and biomass growth.