Author(s):

Amritha K and Jayasree Sankar S

Abstract: “Soil Quality” is the capacity of a specific kind of soil to function within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality and support human health and habitation. One of the major threats for soil quality is the intensive use of agrochemicals coupled with soil degradation processes. Vermicomposting has emerged as a promising eco-friendly approach for recovering degraded soils and equally good is the application of biochar, a carbonaceous material produced from pyrolysing biomass for both remediation and for soil carbon storage potentials. The vermicompost and biochar mentioned in the present study are rice straw based products. The lower bulk density of straw and its products compared to soil shows its promising role in reducing the soil bulk density and increasing the porosity besides its capability to hold more water when applied to soil. The process of vermicomposting helped to increase the nutrients viz., N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, and silicon and decrease that of carbon, cellulose and lignin thereby narrowing down the C: N ratio. Conversion of residues into biochar helped to increase content of most of the nutrients in the final product, while nitrogen, cellulose and lignin content were found to decrease after pyrolysis. Pyrolysis process imparted more recalcitrant character by increasing aromatic compounds as evidenced from FT-IR analysis, thus ensuring its suitability for carbon sequestration.

DOI: 10.22271/phyto.2020.v9.i5v.12557

Pages: 1556-1562  |  1772 Views  1183 Downloads

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