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Production of Vermicompost by Utilizing the Leaves of the Hazardous Xerophyte Prosopis (Prosopis juliflora)

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Abstract

In the context of the absence of any prior art on the vermicomposting of any xerophyte—presumably because xerophytes, in general, are structurally tough and have attributes which help them resist biodegradation—the present work has been undertaken. It has led to a procedure which makes even the highly toxic leaves of prosopis amenable to vermicomposting. Two years long and continuous operation of vermireactors with six different species of earthworms, has shown that the earthworms gradually adapted to prosopis as their exclusive feed, showing a consistently increasing rate of vermicast production while remaining healthy and displaying good fecundity throughout. The work provides an avenue of utilizing prosopis leaves which are generated in very large quantities across the tropical and sub-tropical world. At present no process exists which can make use of prosopis leaves even as the wood of its trees is utilizable. Besides valorizing an otherwise wasted phytomass the present work will also prevent falling of prosopis leaves on soil and their very slow biodegradation during which they toxify the soil with allelochemicals and emit global warming gases.

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Acknowledgements

SAA thanks the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, for the Emeritus Scientist grant (21(1034)/16/EMR-II).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Pollution Control and Environmental Engineering, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, 605014, India

    Pratiksha Patnaik, Tasneem Abbasi & S. A. Abbasi

  2. School of Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Bidholi, Dehradun, 248007, India

    Tabassum-Abbasi

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  1. Pratiksha Patnaik
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  2. Tabassum-Abbasi
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  3. Tasneem Abbasi
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  4. S. A. Abbasi
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Correspondence to S. A. Abbasi.

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Patnaik, P., Tabassum-Abbasi, Abbasi, T. et al. Production of Vermicompost by Utilizing the Leaves of the Hazardous Xerophyte Prosopis (Prosopis juliflora). Waste Biomass Valor 13, 1243–1254 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-021-01576-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-021-01576-x

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