Investigation on Effectiveness of Spent Mushroom Substrate for Production of Bio Compost

A comparative study of Spent Mushroom Substrate (SMS) compost with commercial compost has been conducted in this study. This study was to determine the effect of different composting parameters such as sizing, carbon nitrogen ratio and turning frequency on SMS derived bio compost growth profile and to study the chemical and physical characteristics of SMS derived bio compost. SMS was chosen in this study because it has a lot of macronutrient concentration even though it is recycled.
Furthermore, SMS is mixed with other raw material from green and brown material like cull potatoes, chicken manure, newspaper, fall leaves, soil and piled them by using a layering method which started from sticks followed by brown material and green material. Other than that, the layering method was followed by soil and SMS and lastly repeated the layering. Furthermore, there were three factors in order to achieve the best compost and this experiment was observed in this study which is the first is sizing of the compost where it has three sizing which is 1.6ft x 1.6ft x 1.6ft, 1ft x Ift x Ift and 0.6ft x 0.6ft x 0.6 ft and the best sizing was Ift x Ift x I ft. Next, second is carbon nitrogen ratio (C/N) which is 20:1, 15:1, 10:1 and 5:1 and the best C/N ratio was 20:1 and last factors is turning frequency which is 6 day, 4 day and 2 day and the best turning frequency was on 2 day. Furthermore, after conducting the experiment the samples from each pile were taken and tested for their morphologies of the compost by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the morphologies were compared with commercial compost.
Other than that, the compost from three different piles was used to grow Spinacia oleracea or spinach and compared with commercial compost. The observation showed that spinach that is sowed with SMS derived bio compost started to sprout compared to commercial compost.