Composting of the post-harvested tomato plant wastes and residues

It is important to recycling of plant originated agricultural wastes to farmlands and nature as a compost material in terms of dealing with the lack of organic matter in soil and environmental problems. In this study, composting of the post-harvest tomato plant wastes and residues was investigated only inoculating with microorganisms obtained from animal manure without mixing any other plant or animal waste material. Also, changes in some properties of the plant material during the composting process were determined. For this purpose, the extract obtained from animal manure was added to the biomass including tomato waste and residues, and it was composted by windrow method at 60% humidity condition. Changes in temperature, pH, EC, organic carbon, C/N ratio and microbial biomass carbon content of compost pile were determined during the 90 days of composting process. According to the results, the temperature of the compost pile reached the thermophilic phase at 38th day, the highest temperature was determined at 59th days as 65°C and thermophilic phase completed at 64th days. While initial C/N ratio and pH of plant biomass were 39 and 6.21, they were determined as 12.7 and 7.50 at the end of 90 days, respectively. At the end of the experiment, it was determined that post-harvest tomato plant wastes and residues could be successfully composted with only microbial inoculation by windrow method without mixing with any other plant and animal wastes