Mali Organic Waste

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Comment by Gregory Chipman Thomas Curtis on February 22, 2012 at 14:16

Hi Mohammad,

 How many farmers do you think 10 tons will help? Sounds like things are all coming together. Good news indeed. I'll hear from you once the results are in.

Comment by Mohammad Wasim Sharif on February 21, 2012 at 18:11

Hi Gregory;

Thanks for all helpful information.  We are planning approx 10 tons in first batch but before doing this we will need to give another experiment for getting better numbers of Nitrogen, Phosphor etc.  We will do inform you accordingly about the results.

Comment by Gregory Chipman Thomas Curtis on February 21, 2012 at 16:57

Hi Mohammad,

 Hopefully you will receive good news regarding the worms soon; although by adding the manure you will introduce plenty of bacteria and fungus into the crude fertilizer. Mushrooms are amazing decomposers of organic matter and will help create enriched fertilizer that will be easier to use by the plants.

Looks like you have plenty of help to get these ideas up and going. How much fertilizer do you plan on producing by June/July to help with this seasons crop plantation? 

 In hot places the worms will work fine but they do need a certain amount of wet soil to help breakdown the food waste. The main thing is keeping the crude fertilizer dark for awhile and a simple tarp covering a hole or a partially shaded pit would work fine. I think in the hot and dry conditions the bacteria and fungus in the manure is your best option since they adapt a lot quicker and survive longer.

Attached below are some literature articles relating to organic fertilizer in Pakistan and potential yields for wheat, cotton, sugarcane and rice as well as other food commonly grown there. I know cotton and rice require more water than wheat/sugarcane but I'm sure the varieties commonly grown locally are better adapted for growing well in drier conditions. For the manure I believe 20 - 40% is the range you want to include in the fertilizer. This is dependant on how wet or dry the manure is. In some cases the manure content can be as high as 60-70% but that is in more mild and wet regions. These articles will provide approximate yield numbers for different types of organic fertilizer on different type of plants. 

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Comment by Mohammad Wasim Sharif on February 19, 2012 at 15:39

Hi Gregory;

Thanks for your valuable comments.  After working on the points you asked here i can answer you one by one.

1)-  About Worms i need to work out yet because i didn't find yet any person which can guide about the worms and its availability.  Hopefully in couple of days i will get the information

2)-  Yes we can get animal Manure easily and very cheap as compared to all other products (food waste, straw, ash etc.) I found many resources here

3)-  Yes we can acquire land and labour etc. This is not a big issue.  I have made almost all calculations

4)-  The area where we want to produce fertilizer is mostly dry and sunny.  July to September its Rainy season here.  In all the other months it remain dry.  Mostly season is dry and hot.  From December to February its cold season.

5)- The farmers grow different crop in different seasons.  Major crops are Wheat, Cotton, Sugarcane, Rice

Now i may need further information from you if you don't mind

1)-  Now in dry and hot weather can we use worm

2)-  If we make fertilizer according to what you suggesting then for which crops this fertilizer will be useful.

3)-  What should be the percentage of Animal manure (Max) because we found it much cheaper

Thank you very much for your all kind information. 

Comment by Gregory Chipman Thomas Curtis on February 15, 2012 at 16:18

Hi Mohammad, 

 The simplest way to mix the nutrients in the food waste is mix worms in during the first week or two when the material contains higher amount of moisture. Digging a pit in the ground and adding the food waste plus ash and straw for worms to eat in the dark during the first phase then remove the crude organic fertilizer and dry in the sun (trying to save as much worms for the next batch). This helps breakdown the food with enzymes and provides more accessible amounts of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and phytochemicals . Do you have access to worms?because they are the cheapest way to extract nutrients.

 The nitrogen levels should be between much higher and that can come from animal manure and urine. If you could get the levels to between 5-15% that would be excellent for plant health. Ideally the N, P and K levels are closer to 10%. Do you have access to animal manure/urine? These are some of the best natural sources of nitrogen that plants love. Grinding in any way helps increase surface area so the plants will absorb more nutrient particles. The inorganic minerals (calcium, zinc, boron, copper, iron etc) are ideally between 0.01 - 0.10% but it depends in what form they are in (how they are bonded to organic material or in salt form). 

The list of food wastes are good for fertilizer and with some changes in procedure you could be making complete batches of fertilizer every 30 days or so. Commercial basis typically follows the order of lab scale (you've done), pilot scale (multiple kilograms = you've done), demonstration scale (1000 kilogram) then commercial scale (many thousands of kilograms). This all depends on your supply of food waste, ash, straw and how much time, man power, and access to a place to produce large amounts of fertilizer (land for pits or soil with worms for mixing). Do you have estimate figure on these important issues? 

Does the region of Pakistan you are in have an above average wet or dry season? In Canada the snow melts away by April or so then things get very wet. That is the best time for worms and by May farmers would plant crops. Typically when do farms in your region plant crops?

 I hope this helps

Comment by Mohammad Wasim Sharif on February 15, 2012 at 11:23

Hi Gregory;

Thanks for your comments. All three pictures are of a single project.  Here is the list of items included in this experiment

1)- Spinach waste

2)- Peals of banana, apple, Papaya, pineapple, chikkoo, potato, garlic, onion etc

3)- Green Chilli

4)- Waste of Guava

5)- Waste of Cabbage

6)- Used black tea

7)- coal ash

8)- wheat straw

9)- A little amount of other veg and fruit waste

Procedure:-  We mixed up all the above things and then put them in direct sunlight for 30 days without covering (there was sun about 23 days).  After 30 days we ground this mixture and given this powder shape material to lab for test. 

Now What is our Main Purpose:-

Actually we want to start this project on commercial basis (for selling our product in market).  Our farmers are facing many problems including shortage of water, expensive fertilizers etc.  We want to start this project and sell our fertilizer at cheaper price.  We need a fertilizer which should be used for different kind of agricultural products (from wheat to veg. and fruits).  Now please recommend us a better and cheaper way so that we can develop a good fertilizer at cheaper cost and which we can sell in the market and compete the other kinds of chemical fertilizers.  By the way please also guide us what should be the best percentages of nitrogen, ca etc. in a good fertilizer.  Awaiting your kind comments

Comment by Gregory Chipman Thomas Curtis on February 15, 2012 at 4:49

Hi Mohammad,

 The pictures of your experiments look like the material has been subjected to heat treatment and based on the NFC lab report it contains lots of vegetable waste. Could you tell me which procedure you used for each picture? Or is it all the same batch and that what the NFC lab report explains?

  The report has some good numbers of P205 and K20 with a nice low moisture content. Has this material been ground up or physically treated? The next phase after a few good batches is to explore different ways to add the fertilizer to soil. Also comparison with other fertilizer - what is your expected time frame for this project? What vegetables/plants were you going to focus on? Overall this is a positive result and I am encouraged your project is progressing. 

Comment by Mohammad Wasim Sharif on February 13, 2012 at 16:52

Hi Gregory;

Finally we work on this project on experimental basis as per your recommendations.  Here below i am providing link of pictures of experiment and also Lab report of the Organic fertilizer.  Need your comments and suggestions. 

Experiment Pic1

Experiment Pic2

Experiment Pic3

NFC Lab Report

Comment by Mohammad Wasim Sharif on December 18, 2011 at 18:06

Hi Gregory;

Thanks for your valuable comments.  Ok first i need to look at case studies then i will come back to you for your further help.

Right now i know the only source to get ash from Bricks maker (They used coal), and Textiles Sizing (they used Corn Cob for their boilers as alternate energy and some used wood)

Comment by Gregory Chipman Thomas Curtis on December 18, 2011 at 17:34

Hi Mohammad,

About 70% food waste and 15% straw and 15% ash is a good start but also trying 20% straw or ash and 10% of the other is an easy way to compare what combination is best suited for good fertilizer. The case studies should provide results of different percentages of materials. 

  Fruits high in potassium include bananas, oranges, papayas, prunes and cantaloupe. Vegetables such as tomatoes, sweet potatoes and avocados are also high in potassium. Food wastes of this type should provide an excellent alternative for potassium - this type of potassium will be better for the plant than mineral potassium but it changes with type of plant on how much they can take. Coal or charcoal ash should be fine although depending on the type of coal it might contain heavier metals that the plant doesn't need/want (seaweed is nature's best way to remove heavy metals from water mixtures).

To my understanding Faisalabad produces super-phosphate (mono-calcium phosphate) and that is an excellent fertilizer and mixing this compound with the ash or food waste would help. Urea fertilizer would be a good comparison (since plants require nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus).

The only side affect would be dependant on the metals in the ash but if the coal is hard (shiny black anthracite) not soft (brown lignite) then it should not have unwanted metals. How would you obtain the ash? What type of plants do you want to grow? Lots of sun will help speed of the reaction to produce good fertilizer. I hope this helps.

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