Effects of Composted and Vermicomposted Sugarcane Industry Wastes and Farm Manure on Tomato Quality and Yield

A field study was conducted to signify the use of sugarcane industrial and dairy farm wastes through composting and vermi-composting and application to tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum L) crop to evaluate any effects on growth, yield and fruit quality. Composts and vermi-composts of FM (Farm Manure), SB (Sugarcane Bagasse), SP (Sugarcane Pressmud), mixture of SB×SP×SE [sugarcane effluent (1:1:1)] @ 10 t ha 1 , respectively were applied before transplanting of nursery. The fertilizers NPK @ 81-76-76 kg ha -1 were also applied in all plots. Overall, there were significant (p ≤ 0.05) impacts of treatments on agronomic and fruit quality traits. Plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, number of fruits and yield were increased by 37, 67, 62, 59 and 24% with FMVC (Farm Manure Vermi-Compost) treatment over control. There was 6% increase in soluble solids of tomato fruit in FMVC plots compared with control treatment. However, maximum titrable acidity (0.0081mg citric acid/100g) in fruit juice was found in MVC plots. TN (Total Nitrogen) concentration of tomato fruit juice was increased by 1.74% in with FMVC over control treatments. Maximum lycopene contents (22.19 mg kg -1 ) were observed in FMVC plots as compared to all other treatments. It could be concluded that all treatments improved growth, yield and quality of fruit compared with control; whereas FMVC treatment performed better.


INTRODUCTION
oil fertility is critical to crop yield, which is dependent upon several controls such as environmental conditions [1], agrochemicals and nutrients used, organic amendments (e.g. farm and green manures) and soil biota [2]. The soil biological health is one of the dominant factors, which significantly contributes to the maintenance of soil fertility and crop yield. Dumping of organic wastes is becoming a challenge for many countries as use of raw organic wastes could deteriorate environment [3], soil 381 produces the best soil amendments [7] for achieving desired soil properties. Thus, application of composts as a soil amendment has multiple benefits such as improving the soil health, minimizing the disease threat and controlling the soil erosion [8]. Moreover, the organic material mineralization improves nutrient availability, which in turn improves crop yield [9]. Vermi-compost materials are produced through the effective interaction of microbes and earthworms that could be used to improve the soil fertility [7]. During the vermi-composting, microbes are mainly involved in biochemical decomposition of organic matter; whereas earthworms drive the process by acclimatizing the substrate [10]. The end product, i.e. vermi-compost serves as a soil conditioner [11]. The vermi-compost material is reported to boost the availability of mineral nutrients including nitrogen (five folds), phosphorus (seven folds), potassium (eleven folds) and magnesium (two folds) in the soil [12]. There are reports that earthworms are helpful for replacing harmful insects and bio-accumulating heavy metals during the vermi-composting process [13].
North East South Path

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Water Channel

BLOCK 2
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BLOCK 3
Water Channel   T8  T7  T3   T5  T2  T5   T4  T8  T8   T1  T3  T1   T6  T4  T6   T2  T5  T7   T7  T6  T4   T3  T1  T2  West  Increase in growth, yield and quality of tomato fruits are reported as a result of vermi-composting in pot and field experiments [14]. Higher contents of Ca and and vitamin C in tomato fruits have also been observed with vermi-compost application [15]. The composition of compost also affect the yield of crops such as tomato [9]. It has been reported that an application of vermi-compost enhances soil fertility [16] by providing with essential nutrient [17]. In Pakistan, little work has been done on using local 382 species of earthworms for preparation of vermicompost. As for as we know that compost and vermicompost of sugarcane industrial wastes and farm manure for safe utilization have rarely been reported. Therefore, we investigated the effects of compost and vermi-compost made from sugarcane industrial wastes and farm manure on the growth, yield and carbohydrate concentration, total nitrogen, lycopene contents, soluble and insoluble solids of tomato fruits.

Preparation of Compost and Vermi-Compost
Organic wastes, including sugarcane bagasse, press mud, effluent and farm manure were used for composting and vermi-composting. The detailed procedure for preparation of compost and vermicompost and their analyses have been discussed earlier [18].

Experimental Layout:
The experimental field located at Research Area of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan was ploughed with disc harrow and then cultivator followed with planking was used to prepare the field. A total of 27 plots (each of 1 m 2 ) were made manually. Numbers of fruits and their weight were recorded from each plot. Fruits having marketable and nonmarketable quality (cracked, damaged and infected) were graded. However, marketable fruits were taken to determine the yield and quality. Tomato fruit-yield was taken at 85 and 100 DAT. The soil samples taken from the 27 experimental plots (before application of treatments) were thoroughly mixed and a representative composite sample was prepared. The sample was analyzed following standard analytical method by [19]. The physicochemical properties of the composite sample are provided in Table 1.

Chemical Analyses of Tomato Fruit
For fruit quality analysis, tomato fruits from each treatment were cut into small slices and then mixed.
Acidity of tomato juice was measured in mg citric acid per 100 Ml [22]. Lycopene contents (mg kg -1 ) of tomato juice were also measured. Lycopene contents were calculated by the formula [23].

Statistical Analyses
Analysis of variance using randomized complete block design was performed using Statistix 8.1 (a computer-based software). The comparisons among treatments were made following tukey-honestly significant difference test at P ≤0.05 [24].
Results reported in Figs. 2-3, illustrated that FMVC increased plant height and stem diameter over all other treatments. This could be due to increased P and K uptake and availability of earthworm casts (efficient source of plant nutrients) in the vermin-compost [25]. Data presented in this study are in accordance with those of [26], who reported that growth and yield of tomato was increased with application of vermincompost made from pig manure.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded that the FM (Farm Manure) using local earthworm species produced a higher quality organic fertilizer that had positive influence on plant growth and fruit quality of tomato plants. In future, more extensive experiments could be conducted using tested organic materials and local earthworm species for preparation of vermi-compost and to study their influence on various soil physico-chemical properties as well as growth and yield of different crops. [5] Theunissen, J., Ndakidemi, P.A., and Laubscher, C.P., "Potential of Vermicompost Produced from Plant Waste on the Growth and Nutrient Status in Vegetable Production", International Journal of Physical Sciences, Vol. 5, No. 13, pp. 1964-1973, 2010.