Forest nursery waste composting in windrows with or without horse manure or urea – the composting process and nutrient leaching

Abstract

In order to find the best management practices for forest nursery waste composting, organic waste was composted without or with horse manure or urea in six windrows for two years. The windrows were built in four consecutive years during 1999–2002. In 1999, no extra-nutrients were added to the windrow (N99). In 2000, urea fertilizer was used as a nitrogen source (U00). Despite this, the process did not function properly. In 2001, two windrows were built, one (H01) with and the other (N01) without horse manure. Horse manure slightly accelerated the heating process. Consequently, two windrows with more horse manure were built in 2002. One was aerated passively (H02) as earlier windrows, and the other was aerated forcedly (HA02). Horse manure and forced aeration were needed to keep the temperature above 55°C for long enough to ensure microbial hygiene of the material. The degradation of cellulose was greater during the curing stage. Nutrient leaching was low, although the additives increased leaching in conjunction with the inefficient process. The results showed that forest nursery waste alone is ineffective at raising the temperature of the compost, and degrades slowly due to its low nutrient and easily available carbon content. The best management practice for forest nursery waste composting is to use horse manure and aeration to ensure the heating process. Environmental contamination can be avoided by collecting the leachates. Further research is needed to evaluate the usability of the compost.

Lignocellulosic saccharification by a newly isolated bacterium, Ruminiclostridium thermocellum M3 and cellular cellulase activities for high ratio of glucose to cellobiose

“…Manure has been recognized as an excellent source of cellulose-fermenting thermophiles [ 26 ]. Horse manure is a source of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, easily available carbon compounds, microbes, and neutralizing compounds that enable effective growth of the microbes responsible for organic matter decomposition and the consequent rise in temperature [ 29 ]. Some typical cellulose-fermenting thermophiles, such as C. thermocellum [ 30 ], Clostridium thermobutyricum [ 31 ], Clostridium thermoaceticum [ 32 ], and Moorella thermoacetica [ 33 ], have been isolated from horse manure.…”

Grow - Store - Steam - Re-peat: Reuse of spent growing media for circular cultivation of Chrysanthemum

“…In greenhouse cultivation, reuse of growing media is strongly encouraged because the disposal of growing media at the end of the growing season is a potential threat to the environment (Diara et al, 2012). Spent growing media can be directly recycled as soil improver, recycled as bulking agent for composting (Veijalainen et al, 2007;Viaene et al, 2017a), used as feedstock for energy (Kraska et al, 2018) and/or biochar production, or directly reused as growing medium with or without previous sanitation. The stability of the spent growing media is an important indicator for the reuse: highly degradable materials reused as growing medium might cause oxygen shortage in the medium and reduce the root development and plant growth (Brinton, 2001;Iglesias-Díaz et al, 2009).…”

GrowingPicea abiescontainer seedlings in peat and composted forest-nursery waste mixtures for forest regeneration

“…The biodegradable waste formed in forest nurseries consists of rejected tree seedlings, which do not meet the size and shape requirements, or are affected by plant diseases or pests, as well as the growing media, weeds, grass clippings and fallen leaves. Windrow composting of forest-nursery waste with organic nutrient addition, such as horse manure, is a practical solution for the on-site treatment of biodegradable waste with low capital and management costs (Veijalainen et al, 2005(Veijalainen et al, , 2007b. However, the suitability of the compost for use as a growing medium in container tree-seedling production is not well known.…”