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How Is Vermicompost Produced: Food Processing Wastes Digestate From Biogas Plants

Vermicompost is the excrement or castings of earthworms, which improves soil properties. Earthworms eat organic waste and soil, breaking it down in their digestive tract so that the castings contain more available nutrients for plants. Vermicompost can be produced on a small or large scale by feeding various organic materials to earthworms like Eisenia foetida, which are efficient composters. The castings have higher nutrients than regular compost and provide benefits to plants like increased growth and disease suppression as well as benefits to the environment.

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34 views3 pages

How Is Vermicompost Produced: Food Processing Wastes Digestate From Biogas Plants

Vermicompost is the excrement or castings of earthworms, which improves soil properties. Earthworms eat organic waste and soil, breaking it down in their digestive tract so that the castings contain more available nutrients for plants. Vermicompost can be produced on a small or large scale by feeding various organic materials to earthworms like Eisenia foetida, which are efficient composters. The castings have higher nutrients than regular compost and provide benefits to plants like increased growth and disease suppression as well as benefits to the environment.

Uploaded by

Mandy Abucay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Simply speaking, vermicompost is earthworm excrement, called castings, which can improve

biological, chemical, and physical properties of the soil. The chemical secretions in the earthworm’s
digestive tract help break down soil and organic matter, so the castings contain more nutrients that
are immediately available to plants.

How is Vermicompost Produced


A wide range of organic residues, such as straw, husk, leaves, stalks, weeds etc can be converted
into vermicompost. Other potential feedstock for vermicompost production are livestock wastes,
poultry litter, dairy wastes, food processing wastes, organic fraction of MSW, bagasse, digestate
from biogas plants etc. Earthworms consume organic wastes and reduce the volume by 40–60
percent.
Each earthworm weighs about 0.5 to 0.6 gram, eats waste equivalent to its body weight and
produces cast equivalent to about 50 percent of the waste it consumes in a day. The moisture
content of castings ranges between 32 and 66 percent and the pH is around 7. The level of nutrients
in compost depends upon the source of the raw material and the species of earthworm.
There are nearly 3600 types of earthworms which are divided into burrowing and non-burrowing
types. Red earthworm species, like Eisenia foetida,  and are most efficient in compost making. The
non-burrowing earthworms eat 10 percent soil and 90 percent organic waste materials; these
convert the organic waste into vermicompost faster than the burrowing earthworms. They can
tolerate temperatures ranging from 0 to 40°C but the regeneration capacity is more at 25 to 30°C
and 40–45 percent moisture level in the pile.
The burrowing types of earthworms come onto the soil surface only at night. These make holes in
the soil up to a depth of 3.5 m and produce 5.6 kg casts by ingesting 90 percent soil and 10 percent
organic waste.
The types of vermicomposting depend upon the amount of production and composting structures.
Small-scale vermicomposting is done to meet personal requirements and farmers/gardeners can
harvest 5-10 tons of vermicompost annually. On the other hand, large-scale vermicomposting is
done at commercial scale by recycling large quantities of organic waste in modern facilities with the
production of more than hundreds of tons annually.

Applications of Vermicompost
The worm castings contain higher percentage of both macro and micronutrients than the garden
compost. Apart from other nutrients, a fine worm cast is rich in NPK which are in readily available
form and are released within a month of application. Vermicompost enhances plant growth,
suppresses disease in plants, increases porosity and microbial activity in soil, and improves water
retention and aeration.

Vermicompost also benefits the environment by reducing the need for chemical fertilizers and
decreasing the amount of waste going to landfills. Vermicompost production is trending up
worldwide and it is finding increasing use especially in Western countries, Asia-Pacific and Southeast
Asia.

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