Vermicomposting of phytomass: limitations of the past approaches and the emerging directions
2015
Abbasi, S.A. | Nayeem-Shah, M. | Abbasi, Tasneem
In nature earthworms process enormous quantities of leaf litter and other forms of plant debris by ingesting them and converting them into vermicast. The latter is widely recognized as a soil-friendly and plant-friendly organic fertilizer. Earthworms also consume animal droppings but the quantities of plant biomass processed by earthworms are several times greater than the quantities of zoomass they handle. Yet, when controlled vermicomposting is done to process biodegradable solid waste, it is almost entirely focused on animal manure or food waste. Leaf litter, paper waste, terrestrial/aquatic weeds, or crop waste is rarely vermicomposted on a large scale.This paper assesses the attempts made so far to vermicompost plant-based substrates and tries to identify the reasons why the laboratory-scale studies have not evolved into larger-scale initiatives in vermicomposting such substrates. Emerging evidence of the efficacy of the high-rate vermicomposting technology in the direct processing of phytomass into fertilizers has been presented.
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