Anna-Maria Veijalainen , Marja-Liisa Juntunen, Arja Lilja, Helvi Heinonen-Tanski, Leo Tervo

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

Veijalainen A.-M., Juntunen M.-L., Lilja A., Heinonen-Tanski H., Tervo L. (2007). Forest nursery waste composting in windrows with or without horse manure or urea – the composting process and nutrient leaching. Silva Fennica vol. 41 no. 1 article id 305. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.305

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.

Keywords
microbial hygiene; lignocellulose; nutrients; organic matter decomposition; temperature; tree seedling waste; waste management

Received 27 March 2006 Accepted 9 January 2007 Published 31 December 2007

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