ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Kinjal P. Prajapati and Prateek Shilpkar
1Biogas Research and Extension Centre and Department of Microbiology, Gujarat Vidyapith, Sadara, District- Gandhinagar, Gujarat – 382320, India.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2015;9(2):1621-1626
© The Author(s). 2015
Received: 17/10/2014 | Accepted: 06/12/2014 | Published: 30/06/2015
Abstract

Solanum melongena is a vegetable plant but its stem has no economic use and generally burnt in fields. Present study is an attempt to convert it into vermicompost through the activities of Eisenia foetida. The study was focused on changes occurred in activities of various enzymes and in microbial count during the vermicomposting process. Vermicompost was prepared in pits of (45×45×21) cm (l×b×h) size prepared on cemented floor. Four treatments were laid out in triplicates viz. Control: Buffalo dung + Eisenia foetida, T1: Buffalo dung +Solanum melongena stem, T2: Buffalo dung + Solanum melongena stem + Eisenia foetida and T3: Solanum melongena stem + Eisenia foetida. Vermicomposting materials were analyzed at monthly interval for the activities of CMCase, β-glucosidase, FPase, amylase, xylanase, acid and alkaline phosphatase and the count of bacteria, azatobacter, phosphate solubilizer, yeast, fungi and actinomycetes. Results show that the activities of all the enzymes and counts of all the microbial species increased progressively with time but urease activity shows the reverse trend and decreased with time. Statistically the effect of treatments for all these parameters was significant at 5% level of significance except for the counts of yeast and actinomycetes.

Keywords

Brinjal stem, decomposition, earthworms, microbial count, enzyme assay

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