@IJAPSA-2016, All rights Reserved Page 160 EFFECT OF VERMICOMPOST ON ANTIOXIDANT LEVELS IN ANDROGRAPHIS PANICULATA Osama Asanousi Lamma 1 and Moftah Alfeture Moftah 2 1 Research Scholar, Department of Environmental Science, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur 522510, Andhra Pradesh. 2 Head of department Biological Science, Azzaytuna University, Bani Waleed , Libya. ABSTRACT Vermicompost is usually a finely divided peat-like material with excellent structure, porosity, aeration, drainage and moisture holding capacity. It helps to process wastes simultaneously producing biofertilizers and proteins. The present study was carried out to find out the changes in the antioxidants levels in selected medicinal plant by the application of vermicompost and inorganic fertilizer at different time intervals (20, 40 and 60days). There is a significant (p<0.01) increase in the levels of enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants at 60 days interval when compared to the control and inorganic fertilizer application. Inorganic fertilizer application caused the significant decrease in the antioxidants in the Andrographis paniculata No significant results are observed in the control without vermicompost.The result of vermicompost experiment indicated that application of vermicompost has positive effects on Andrographis paniculata and showed that the highest antioxidant levels compared with inorganic fertilizers. Key words: Vermicompost, Andrographis paniculata, Antioxidants, Fertilizer. I. INTRODUCTION India has a wide biodiversity of medicinal plants that grow in forest and uncultivated areas. In present scenario of world trade organization and globalization, the demand of medicinal plants has increased many folds. Kalmegh (Andrographis paniculata) is an important medicinal plant of family Acanthaceae being used in Indian system of medicines since time immemorial( Misra et al., 1992). The plant is also known as rice bitters in West Indies and king of bitters or chiretta in England. Fertilizer management in integrated manner has beneficial effect on soil fertility and available plant nutrients resulting in sustainable crop production and quality. Waste is the spoilage, loss or destruction of either matter or energy, which is unusable to man. Gradually increasing civilization through industrialization and urbanization has led to increase in the generation of wastes polluting environment from various sources(Prabha et al., 2008). The fruit wastes generated in market yards, hostels, hotels and houses are dumped into an open land. This process not only reduces the available fertile land, which was used to produce food and raw materials, but also pollutes air, water and soil. To overcome this problem wastes can be used to produce valuable organic manure by using vermitechnology (Prabha et al., 2008). It is an important aspect of biotechnology involving the use of earthworms for processing various types of organic wastes into valuable resources (Jain, 2000). Vermicomposting helps to process wastes simultaneously giving biofertilizers and proteins Thus vermitechnology could successfully be used to clean the environment as it uses wastes as raw material to change polluted, costly chemical farming to suitable agriculture (Ramesh et al., 2011). Medicinal plants play an important role in the development of potent therapeutic agents. Herbal drugs form the backbone of the invaluable traditional medicinal