Abstract
The efforts have been made to convert the sugar industry waste into a value-added product, by employing an epigenic earthworm species for vermicomposting eg. Eisenia foetida , under laboratory conditions. Sugar industry waste was amended with other organic supplements (Cow dung); and ten types of vermicompost were prepared. Vermicomposting of sugar industry waste resulted in total organic carbon (22.10±0.171) but increment in total nitrogen (20.16±0.142), total potassium (16.76±0.111) and total phosphorus (19.39±0.101) was achieved after 14 weeks of E. foetida activity. The C:N ratio decreased with time in all the earthworm worked vermicompost in the range of (1.09±0.110). E. foetida exhibited maximum value of mean biomass gain (1091.54±0.481 mg earthworm -1 ), cocoon numbers (0.80±0.014 cocoon worm -1 day -1 ) in VC 4 treatment. The microbial populations in vermicomposting (VC 4 ) were enumerated with the dilution plate method, using several media in the presence of earthworms. The microbial populations increased due to earthworm activity. Overall, VC 4 vermicompost appeared as an ideal substrate to manage sugar industry waste effectively and these method can be proposed as a low impute basic technology to convert sugar industry waste into value added vermicomposts.
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