Research Symposium-2013

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Browsing Research Symposium-2013 by Author "Abeysekara, N.N.R."

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    Effective Decomposition of Tobacco (Nicotiana Tabacum) Waste Using Bacteria Earth Worm Combination
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2013) Peragasthenna, D.S.; Herath, H.M.S.K.; Chandrasena, G.; Abeysekara, N.N.R.
    Compost preparation is the promising tool for solve the waste accumulation of most industries. Synthetic fertilizer is the most crucial factor for the bad health infection of the human diet balance. Compost production is the best solution against for the synthetic fertilizer usage at commercial crop cultivation industries (Wijewardane. 2008). Production of compost under home garden level and commercial level has increased as attached by new rules and regulation. Certain productions have been adopted against the chemical or the synthetic fertilizer utilization and thus minimized the health hazard and environment pollution. It is also expected to cater the year round farmer requirement through usage of socially acceptable fertilizer. Commonly Sri Lankan farmers used to practices different traditional methods for the compost production. This research little deviated due to utilization of tobacco waste as agro industrial surrogate for compost production considering nutritional value. Therefore tobacco waste should not be burnt anymore without having a proper use due to its inherent conversion ability to compost (Akehurst. 1981). As an industrial waste, tobacco dust and stem are cheaper materials, which are produced from through the manufacturing process of cigarette blenders. Tobacco waste, which has a potential to use as an alternative growing medium or composting matrix, is readily available. Hence, this research was conducted to evaluate the decomposing performance of tobacco waste which could be used as a growing medium or composting matrix following heap method and vermi composting method. Methodology Five different composting types were considered as five treatments (1) treatment 1 (T1); Paddy straw; cow dung; Gliricidia; old compost with top soil; grass and dried leaves mixed in the ratio of 2:3:1.5:1.5:1:1,(2) treatment 2 (T2); tobacco dust; tobacco stems; cow dung; green leaves and paddy straw mixed in the ratio of 7:1.5:0.5:0.5:0.5, (3)treatment 3 (T3); tobacco waste; paddy straw; molasses; cow dung; top soil; grass; and rock phosphate mixed in the ratio of 5:3:0.5:0.5:0.4:0.4:0.2,(4)treatment 4 (T4); tobacco waste; green leaves; paddy straw; dried leaves; grass; and CaO mixed in the ratio of 6.5: 1: 1: 0.5: 0.5: 0.4: 0.1, and (5)treatment 5 (T5); tobacco waste; effective microorganisms; cow dung; and paddy straw in the ratio of 8.5: 0.5: 0.5: 0.5. In second experiment different combination of composting arrangement were consider as four treatments including; treatment 1 (T1); Tobacco waste with Eisenia fetida, treatment 2 (T2); Tobacco waste with Eisenia fetida + pseudomonas sp (5 g), treatment 3 (T3); Tobacco waste with Eisenia fetida + pseudomonas sp (10 g), Tobacco waste with Eisenia fetida + pseudomonas sp (15 g). In third experiment which useful for the microbial breakdown of nicotine compounds in tobacco waste and isolated by microbes which are available in tobacco plant parts and five different parts were used for isolation. Such as leaf parts, stem parts, tips, waste and leachates. During the composting, the pH and temperature at different locations of the heap was monitored every 2 days in the first week and every 7 days thereafter. The temperature of each heap was measured in the following locations: top of the heap, 130cm from the base of the pile; middle of the heap, 75 cm from the base of the heap; bottom of the pile, 30 cm from the base of the pile; surface of the heap, and 5 cm from the surface of the heap.