| dc.description.abstract | To investigate poultry-waste-composting, one pilot-scale experiment was carried
out to produce good quality compost using poultry litter (PL) and different bulking
agents such as biochar, rice straw (RS), rice husk ash (RHA) and tea waste (TW).
For this experiment, 0.733 m3
each of six square-shaped bins were used with
dimensions, 0.95 m long, 0.93 m wide and 0.83 m height . The study was conducted
at the Research Field of Department of Crop Physiology and Ecology, Hajee
Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, Bangladesh
from January to April, 2019. To monitor the composting process and evaluate
compost quality, some physicochemical parameters such as temperature, moisture
content, pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, volatile solids, total solid, total
organic carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and potassium were measured at
different phases composting. The composting period lasted 90−100 days.
Experimental results showed that the final products had excellent physicochemical
attributes (Carbon and nitrogen ratio, C/N: 17.26-22.41, germination index (GI):
119.18-137.77%, total kjeldahl nitrogen, TKN: 0.97-1.38%, organic matter, OM:
35.22-44.3%, total organic carbon, TOC: 20.42-25.69%, pH: 7.05-8.12, EC: 4739-
6456 µS/cm. There was no signicant impact occurred due to using of biochar in this
experiment. To achieve good quality compost, poultry litter was used on higher
amount with bulking agent (RHA, TW and biochar) where the ratios was
(65:15:10:10). The amount (volume of humidifying agents) and time (frequency) of
moisture addition also played an important role during composting. Poultry litter
produced a high quality soil amender having no phytotoxicity. Nevertheless,
composting duration and bulking agents and their ratios are crucial factors that
determine the quality of the final product. A full-scale compost unit was designedbased on the experimental results. For a typical small-sized poultry farm, having
1500-2000 number of poultry birds, a total area of about 10 m2
is needed to
compost the entire annual produced poultry waste | en_US |
