Solid waste management through vermicomposting and their influence on plant growth of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)
P.K. Saluja
Department of Botany & Biotechnology, Govt. D.B. Girls P.G. College, Raipur (C.G.) (India)
ABSTRACT
Human activities are responsible for generation of a variety of solid waste including garbage from urban community as well as countless different materials such as food wastes, vegetable peels, paper cardboards and agricultural waste. These waste are disposed in open dumps creating considerable nuisance and environmental problems and thus are potential risks to health and breeding of disease vector primarily flies and rats. Apart from abatement of environmental pollution reuse of organic waste in agriculture helps in the improvement of physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil and thus helps in sustaining the soil quality. However due to some shortcomings of traditional composting system, the technology of recycling of organic wastes has not been widely accepted so far. Under this situation, vermicomposting has emerged as a simple but efficient method for recycling wide ranges of organic waste with the help of some specific group of earthworms. The present study deals with ecoconservation and solid waste management of vegetable scalp, and agricultural waste with the help of earthworm forming vermicompost. The effect of different percentage of vermicompost (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%) amended with soil on growth and biomass of Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. plant under field condition was investigated. The result revealed that addition of vermicompost has statistically significant positive effect on growth and biomass of experimental plant.