Recycling Plant Residues as Organic Fertilizers

Abstract

Overcoming environmental pollution arising from plant residues e.g., rice straw, wheat straw, and maize stover will be realized by recycling it as organic manure direct in the soil. Attainment of this aim, the plant residues must be cut up into small parts in order not to retardation tillage systems from mixing and concealment it in the soil. Therefore, a cutting unit machine was developed and tested under Egyptian circumstances. More than 90 % of cutting rice straw had a 4.0 cm length and was distributed in the most harvesting areas. The rotary tiller spread the cutting rice straw in the tilled soil into 56 and 44% at 0.0-5.0 and 5-10 cm, respectively. The microbial activity was improved and reached the highest population density after 8 weeks from tillage and sowing. For three months, the cutting rice straw was completely decomposed and amalgamated into the soil. The cutting straw treatment recorded decreasing in soil penetration resistance.