AGRICULTURE - COMPLETED

Influence of Vermicompost Application on Growth and Yield of Cereals & Ornamental Plants

Earthworms form the major soil macrofauna in temperate and tropical soils. Several species of earthworms are distributed in the soils of Karnataka. A few of these species can produce large quantities of excrements. Such species can be cultured and cultivated to produce worm compost, an organic manure and worm biomass, a proteing. On providing sufficient organic wastes as feed every day the cultured worms can convert live times their body weight of organic matter into fine granular organic manure. This is known as vermicompost. A technology has been developed to produce vermicompost. However, its fertilizer quality has not been established. Depending on this, vermicompost may be found to be useful as a supplement or a replacement for farmyard manure and chemical fertilizers. With this background, this project was initiated with Dr. Radha D. Kale of University of Agricultural Sciences as the convener. The objective of the project was to evaluate the vermicompost for its fertilizer quality against farmyard manure and chemical fertilizers by conducting histochemical and cytochemical studies of selected plants at their different growth stages.

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