Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641 003, India.
Sewage sludge, heterogenous urban waste rich in major and micronutrients. But their heavy metal and pathogenic microorganisms restricted their use in agricultural crop production. Hence a study was formulated to compost the sewage sludge with coir dust, a by product from coir industries and green leaf manure (Glyricidia sp.) and used for assessing the impact on the dry matter yield of maize under green house conditions. The results revealed that seage biosolid composts prepared with coir pith was found to be a best one in restricting the availability of heavy metals and 60 days of composting was found sufficient for land application. Increasing levels of sewage sludge application increased the dry matter yield of maize and the availability of heavy metals were not exceeding the toxic limits in soil amended with sewage sludge compost even upto 20 t ha−1.
