Study On The Effect Of The Aerobic Compost Of Tomato Residues On The Growth Of Tomatoes

It is an effective way of organic waste reutilization to produce the soilless substrate and fertilizer, in order to substitute for the expensive and unregenerate peat. The irrational disposal of vegetable residues is not only polluting the environment, but also wasting amounts of nutritional matters. The number of vegetable residues is more in vine, such as the tomato and cucumber. Meanwhile, these crops release allelo-chemicals through leaching,root exudating and residual decomposing,so that affecting the growth of plants in the same or next stubble.Theromophilic aerobic composting, not only killing pathogenic bacteria, but also degrading residual pesticides and allelo-chemicals, has been widely used as an effective technology of disposing solid waste such as crop residues, because of its harmless and resource utilization.The experiment was from the viewpoint of producing the substitute for peat as the soilless substrate and fertilizer, which aimed at the composting technology of tomato residues and the feasibility of material recycling use in a system of the same family or member. The study explored the influence of mushroom wastes on the tomato residues composting as a conditioner and the effect of tomato residues as a single material or combining with cattle dung or sheep manure on composting; investigated the allelopathy of the aqueous extract of the tomato residues composting on the tomato and cucumber. The further study is to discuss the effect of tomato residues composting on the growth of tomato as the seedling substrate and organic fertilizer. The main results were as follows:1. The preliminary study on the tomato residues composting with cow dung showed that temperature rose up to 74℃in the 2th day, which above 70℃ sustained 3days and above 55℃ lasted 9days. C/N ratio reduced from 25.1 to 18.51, and GI increased to 61% after 30 days, from 23% at first only, from which we concluded that tomato residues was basically well-rotted, and the degradation effects of tomato residues was well with cow dung.2. The compost of the mixture of tomato residues and sheep manure with different ratio of 0%, 5%, 10%, 25% and 40% mushroom residues showed that, the degradation percentage of organic matter and C/N ratio is highest in the treatment of 0% and 5%, which have the most total nutrients(TN+TP+TK) in compost. We can conclude further that the adding of mushroom residues cannot accelerate the tomato residues composting process though its bigger porosity。3. The study of tomato residues composting, its only material or with the adding of EM microorganism, cattle dung or sheep manure in the four treatments, indicated that the composts with good quality have been produced in the four treatments. The temperature in all treatments increased up to 55℃ rapidly, the compost with sheep manure or EM showed the highest temperature and effective accumulated temperature, which lasted the longer high-temperature. The degradation percentage of organic matter was higher, 23.36% and 21.37% from the beginning respectively in the tomato only or with EM microorganism, and which have the maximumincrease in total nutrients.4. The allelopathy of aqueous extracts of tomato residues compost on the tomato and cucumber presented that the extracts suppressed seed germination and the growth of tomato, and the inhibitory and promoting effect were stronger and stronger with the increase of concentration, but the extracts facilitated the seed germination and the growth of cucumber. We can concluded that allelo-chemicals in tomato residues degraded through high-temperature aerobic compost, and made the potential in producing the substrate of tomato and cucumber.5. Nursery substrates were composed of tomato residues compostand vermiculite in different volume ratio.All tomato seedlings grew wellin all substrates, among which, seedling is better in the mixture, which ratio is 1/4 between compost and vermiculite.6. The study on organic fertilizer manifested that the indicators were better in stem diameter, chlorophyll and yield of tomato in the ratio of 5%~10% treatment and the content of the soluble protein, solid contents and titratable acid increased with the increase of the proportion of compost.In conclusion, there is no obvious effect on improving the property of composting with the adding of mushroom residues as a conditioner. Tomato residues only can succeed in composting. The EM microbial bacterial was conducive to the degradation of organic matter and the sheep manure is beneficial to the increase of temperature and the duration of high temperature. The tomato residues composting can apply to the recyclable process of tomato production, such as in the field of seedling substrate and organic fertilizer of tomatoes.