Composting Characteristics of Bovine Manure Produced by Conventional Stacked Processing and an Experimental Small-Scale Apparatus

Southern Kyushu is an important center of beef production in Japan and the large amounts of bovine waste that are produced in the region need to be utilized in a way that is not harmful to the environment. One such method is to use the manure to produce organic fertilizer, which can then be used to replace the chemical fertilizer that is used for forage production (Hasyim et al., 2014). The composting of bovine manure involves co-digestion of cow manure with substrates such as sawdust and hay. The composting characteristics of these mixtures are influenced by the relative amounts of manure and the substrate used, and by external and internal composting conditions (Guo et al., 2012). Conventional stacked composting requires large volumes of materials, and repeating the composting procedure to produce compost with uniform characteristics is difficult (Kajiya et al., 2013). However, optimization of bovine manure composting has been established using a small-scale apparatus that can be operated by hand (Kajiya et al., 2014). However, the composting characteristics of the apparatus have not yet been compared with those associated with conventional stacked processing. The present study therefore compared the composting characteristics of these two methods in terms of the temperature profile during the composting process, physicochemical properties of composted manure, and percentage germination of plants; all of these methods have been advocated for use as safety indices for compost intended for application to cultivated crops (Cobo et al., 2002)