The traditional methods of composting are more labour intensifying, hence economically not viable. I am looking for the best and quick way of making compost by using dry leaves of deciduous trees in a very short span of time. Any help in this matter will be highly appreciated.
Dear Dr: It depends on the amount of leaves, chemical composition, moisture and size of the leaves. Per se, the tree leaves are rich in cellulose and the composting process can last very long. There are devices where you can put the leaves, chipped to reduce its size and improve their contact with other raw materials that can give other nutrients to balance the C:N ratio and rise the speed of the composting process as different tipes of animal manures or agro industrial residues. Best regards.
Hello Kumar, can you inform us a little more about the C/N ratio, moisture and the bulk density of the fallen leaves? I can give some tips to compost them. Along with those information, are they leaves of single specie or a mixture of different ones?
You can consider vermicomposting. This also will require some accelerators like cow dung in small quantities. the process will take about 4 months. Maintaining moisture, protecting from predators and frequent mixing are essential.. You get about 20 % yield. You need to buy the worms from a reliable source.
Leaves do break down nicely by themselves, albeit very slowly. Depending on your circumstances and how much effort and technology you wish to apply, you might try the low tech traditional British method of "leaf mould": dig a shallow trench or pit maybe 30cm, in a shaded area, moisten it if it is not already soil moist, then layer the moistened leaves into it, heaped up, and compact it (walking on top etc), and then keep it moistened intermittenlty over the next 2 years. This encourages fungal decomposition. It makes a wonderful dark, humusy mass, esp. good for transplanting seedlings.
Dear Dr.
First, you should observe the fallen leaves on the soil.
-Do they decompose? No, these leaves content antimicrobial compounds. Chop them.
-Do they decompose rapidly and you are left with veins and leaf stems? Then, they will compost rapidly in a compost pile. Most of the time, leaves do not give any structure to you compost pile, so you need to add something to allow air to go trough you pile. The old substrates used to grow plant may be of interest. Otherwise, if you have leaves, you have trees and you can use the chopped pruning material to give some strong lasting structure to your pile.
For fast composting, you need to brake down all the material that should go into the compost. The rapid composting method may be useful (http://vric.ucdavis.edu/pdf/compost_rapidcompost.pdf). Your material would be likely the waste from the tropical garden (plant substrates and dead plants), and leaves. You might also collect the food waste from the meal preparations. This food waste should be mainly the fruit and vegetable peels. For a public garden, do not add meat unless the compost pile reach rapidly hot temperature and you control the smell. You need a C/N ratio of about 30, a water content between 40-65 %, and O2 at more than 5%. You should collet the leachate and recycled it on your compost pile, if the compost dry out.
Good luck.
You may try the woodin box composting method. Depending on the climate, the box could be lined with polythene sheet to conserve moisture and heat. Also you may want to add an N rich material like poultry manure. These can give you good compost faster than the traditional pit method.
An alternative is to laminate composting.
It is another way of doing aerobic composting. mounted -shaped blade is used at the place where the compound to humified. This location can be on the projection area canopy of tree crops (coconut, orange, etc.) or where construction is done for plant cultivation. Alternate blades are mounted carbon-rich waste (thickness 15 cm) waste rich in nitrogen (thickness of 5 cm) .The total thickness of the blades varies from 40 to 60 cm. when made in the projection of the plant canopy, the material should be away 20 to 30 cm from the stem. In this type of composting the plowing is done by worms and insects which develop within the blades, eliminating the manual plowing.
Enrichment of the organic compound
During assembly of the compost windrow one can to enrich the compound of nutrients, using rich rock powder macro and micronutrients (for ex. Phosphate of Gafsa) at a ratio of 10 kg tonne of waste to be composted. The addition of gypsum
agricultural in proportion to the rock waste will benefit the Quality of the compound, as in piles in sheets or hills. Quick compound without manure The manure nutrient enriched compound, but composting process may occur without the addition of manure. The important thing is to use materials rich in carbon and for nitrogen rich materials having the C / C suitable for the job of microorganisms responsible
for fermentation and humus waste.Mix 2/3 of waste rich in carbon, which tend to
be harder and woody as twigs, dry leaves, straw, stems, etc., with 1/3 of material rich in nitrogen as the plant shoots, grass clippings, leaves and stems green legume plants, vegetables remains, fruit and food. These materials, these ratios,
should be mixed evenly moistened (without flooding) and placed in the form of windrow or pile. In the second, fourth, seventh and tenth day after mounting
gem do the plowing. After the last plowing the begin 70 ° C down to around
40 ° C and the compost is ready for use.
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