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Waste Management & Research
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Transformation of nitrogen during vermicomposting of fly ash

Satya S. Bhattacharya

Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India

Gunindra N. Chattopadhyay

Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India, gunin_c{at}yahoo.com

In view of environmental problems generated by large-scale production of fly ash, increasing attention is now being paid to the recycling fly ash as a source of plant nutrients in agriculture. However, the low amount of nitrogen in such materials forms a major constraint for such application. In the present study, the possibility of improving the N status in mixtures of fly ash and organic matter was investigated by adopting vermicomposting technology. Different combinations of fly ash and cow (Bos taurus) dung; namely fly ash alone, cow dung alone and fly ash + cow dung at 1: 1, 1: 3 and 3: 1 ratios were incubated with and without epigeic earthworms (Eisenia fetida) for 50 days. The occurrence of N in different bio-available forms; namely easily mineralizable, NH4 +and NO3 - tended to increase considerably in the series treated with earthworms. This behaviour was attributed primarily to increased microbiological activity in the vermicom-posted samples and also to a considerable rise in the concentration of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in this series. Among the three combinations of vermicomposted fly ash and cow dung, the 1: 1 mixture appeared to exhibit the highest availability of nitrogen.

Key Words: Fly ash • vermicomposting • N transformation • wmr 702-6

Waste Management & Research, Vol. 22, No. 6, 488-491 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0734242X04048625
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