Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
soil health, soil biodiversity and hygiene have fascinated the worldwide attention to
organically reuse practice like composting (Abdelhamid et al.
2004
).
Now-a-days a large amount of organic waste is produced as a by-product by
human activities, which has impact on the environment and has the ability to cause
danger for animal and human health. Managing this huge quantity of wastes is im-
portant to protect the environment and reduce the amount of these wastes. As re-
ported by many researchers, composting is an efficient alternative way to reduce
the residue of organic wastes (Alburquerque et al.
2006
; Baharuddin et al.
2009
).
Composting is a biological process used to speed up the decomposition process
under controlled conditions. This process converts organic wastes to a much stable
product, which is free of phytotoxicity and pathogens. Compost is used safely and
beneficially as organic fertilizer and soil conditioner (Arslan et al.
2008
; Busta-
mante et al.
2008
; Bernal et al.
2009
). The use of compost as fertilizer improves soil
structure, water-holding capacity of the soil as well as improving the aeration. Com-
post could also provide humus or organic matter, vitamins, hormones, and plant
enzymes that are not incorporated by synthetic fertilizers. The amount of C:N ratio
of soil is reduced by compost and it also perform as buffer to adjust soil pH. Com-
posting also can kill pathogenic organisms, weeds and other unwanted seeds. Fully
established compost rapidly comes into symmetry with the soil. It has the ability to
be blended or mixed with different materials which increases the nutrient content of
the compost fertilizers (Campitelli and Ceppi
2008
; De Guardia et al.
2012
).
With technology innovation and research investigations, agricultural waste is
no longer an environmental concern, on the other hand, it has become a source for
energy production. A remarkable potential in improving the common status of sani-
tation, constructive environmental measures to lessen greenhouse gas emissions,
considerably enhanced the crop production, soil fertility, decreased the universal
reliance on synthetic fertilizers, fossil fuel, etc. Available literature showed that Ma-
laysia produced around 41 % of the entire global palm oil production in 2008 (Shafie
et al.
2011
). Being a main agricultural product, the production pattern match up to
a quick augment from 2.6 Mt in 1980 to about 18.9 Mt in 2011 (Malaysian Palm
Oil Board (MPOB)
2012
). Malaysia palm oil industry is expecting a strong demand
from the global market by a constant increase from 20.6 Mt in 2013 to 21.5 Mt in
2015 owing to the mounting worldwide demand for vegetable oil (Corley
2009
). In
principle, improvement in palm oil production would ultimately interpret to loads
of biomass offered in the market (Umar et al.
2013
).
In the palm oil manufacture practice there is generally a surplus of by-prod-
uct and the utilization pace of these by-products is small particularly for palm
oil mill effluent (POME), empty fruit bunch (EFB) and decanter cake (DC). The
better nutrient reuse will perk up soil fertility and sustainability of palm oil produc-
tion. Techniques available, such as normal composting, co-composting and vermi-
composting are being practiced however, have not been exploited in its full strength
as huge quantity of palm waste could be decomposed in short time and the compost
made from oil palm waste could not only be applied to palm plantations but also
to various crops. This will ultimately eliminate the synthetic fertilizers application
(Embrandiri et al.
2013
).
