Assessing manure and compost quality of selected livestock animals reared at Karugwa mixed farm Luwero District in the North of Central Uganda.
Abstract
Soils in Uganda are reported to decreases in fertility over the past twenty years, to reverse this trend, efforts towards sustainable landuse and management need to be doubled. For example, soil degradation must be checked and practices that can help restoring soil physical, chemical and biological quality need to be prioritized. The integral use of inorganic fertilizers and compost from animal wastes (manure) have already shown promising results in improving all aspects of soil quality (i.e. physical, chemical and biological properties). However, the proper acquisition of manure and its composts has been with so limited information available for the people of Uganda. Animal manuresare the solid, semisolid, and liquid by-products generated by animals grown to produce meat, milk, eggs, and other agricultural products for human use and consumption.Animalmanuresare the solid, semisolid, and liquid by-products generated by animals grown to produce meat, milk, eggs, and other agricultural products for human use and consumption.The study involves studying of selected animal manuresand their composts.It involvescomparing the manure and composts quality in terms of nutrient concentration, and at the end of the research, the best compostwas selected amongst the two animal compostformsThe study involves two selected animal manure forms and that is cattle and pig. The study also involves the assessment of two composting methods effects on compost quality and that is the Karugwa method of composting and the modified heap method of composting.Composting processes were set of at the same time for the different manure forms and composting covered twelve weeks. Cattle manure emerged the best manure to be used due to a lot of constraints that were observed in the pig manure. The manure composts from the modified heap method also emerged the best as far as nutrient composition is concerned. At the same time the study exploits more about the demerits of non-composted manure application no matter their facts of possessing high total nutrients concentration, the study clarifies that however these non-composted manures many contain a lot of total nutrients, most crucial nutrients are not in their available forms to cause an impact as far as crop production is concerned.