The Main Nutrients Determination and Composting Experiment of Mulberry Branches and Silkworm Faeces
Mulberry branches and silkworm faeces are the main by-products in sericulture.Reusing these by-products to make compost is an effective way of resourceful utilization and harmless treatment.Deter-mination results showed that the C/N ratio of mulberry branches became higher as the lignification degree increased.The C/N ratio of silkworm faeces decreased significantly with mixing of mulberry leaves and stems.The composting experiment set up 3 treatment groups,namely,Pile No.1 (100% mulberry bran-ches),Pile No.2 (20% silkworm faeces +80% mulberry branches)and Pile No.3 (100% silkworm fae-ces).The substance changes during the compost maturation and the compost quality after maturation in each group were determined.Results showed that the days of the high temperature (≥50 ℃)of each pile in descending order was No.1 ,No.2 and No.3 during composting and various nutrient content changed the most dramatically in the first 60 days.After maturation of each pile,the organic matter content in de-scending order was No.1,No.2 and No.3,and the effective nitrogen,phosphorous,potassium and the to-tal quick effective nutrients content in descending order was No.3,No.2 and No.1.To sum up,composting required reasonable adjustment of nitrogen application based on the composition of raw materials.Pile No. 2 had the best quality of compost which indicated that adding a certain amount of silkworm faeses to mul-berry branch pile could guarantee comparatively high organic matter content as well as improve the quick effective fertility of compost.