Chemical Science Review and Letters ISSN 2278-6783 Chem Sci Rev Lett 2018, 7(25), 222-227 Article CS042049031 222 Research Article Assessment of Quality of Compost Prepared From Paddy Straw and Distillery Effluent Pankaj Kumari, Suman Chaudhary*, Rinku Dhanker, Nisha Verma and Sneh Goyal Department of Microbiology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar (India)-125004 Introduction Due to everlasting large growing population and rapid rate of industrialization, there is enormous increase in Industrial and agricultural waste. It is necessary to pretreat these wastes before their disposal into soil to avoid any kind of environmental problems. Distillery effluent and paddy straw are the industrial and agricultural wastes respectively. Distillery effluent (DE) is dark brown complex, organic industrial material having extremely high chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), inorganic solids and low in pH [1-4]. It contains reduced sugars, carbohydrates, waxes, proteins, alcohol, sulfurous compounds, minerals, melanoidins etc. It is reported as one of the major pollution problems of countries, which are producing alcohol from the fermentation and subsequent distillation process of sugar cane molasses [5]. It doesn’t having any toxic substances but has high oxygen demand so it is harmful to apply as it is into the soils. Huge amount of paddy straw (PS) is generated throughout India every year after crop harvest [6] which is not degraded easily. India is the world’s largest producer of paddy after China [7]. In 2014, Indian paddy production was 152 MMT along with huge amount of paddy straw. To manage this straw, the most common practice in India is to burn this in the fields itself to make the fields ready for the next crop just because of short window time between two crops [8]. Paddy residue management through its direct incorporation into soil is associated with certain problems such as immobilization of important plant nutrients, impedes bed preparation and reduced germination of subsequent crops. Paddy straw is having high C:N ratio and lignin, therefore decomposes slowly [9]. So keeping in view the above facts, the present study was carried out with this idea of co-composting of an agricultural waste (paddy straw) along with industrial waste (distillery effluent) and evaluated for different quality parameters. Experimental Composting Material and Treatments The composting of paddy straw and distillery effluent was carried out under pit house conditions in different ratios in various treatments given below and the experiment was conducted in 1.5×1.5×1.5 ft. size pits. The initial C:N ratio of material was adjusted to 50:1 by dipping in 0.1% solution of urea. Fungal consortium of three different fungi (Aspergillus awamorii, Paecilomyces fusisporus and Trichoderma viride) was used for composting. Abstract During the present investigation the paddy straw and distillery effluent were mixed in different ratios along with cattle dung and microbial consortium and allowed to decompose under pit house conditions up to 90 days. The changes in C/N ratio were monitored at different days of composting and C/N ratio dropped down from 49.09 to 16.25 after 90 days in the treatment T5 having Paddy straw + 30% Distillery Effluent + 10% Cattle dung + microbial consortia (1 g) in comparison to control treatment T1 having Paddy straw + 10% Cattle dung. The quality of compost was assessed by measuring different parameters such as C/N ratio, humic substances, carbon dioxide evolution, water soluble carbon and % germination index of wheat. The compost prepared with paddy straw, 30% distillery effluent, 10% Cattle dung and microbial consortia (compost 2) was having 16.25 C/N ratio after 90 days, 109.66 mg/g humic acid, 27.79 mg/g fulvic acid and CO 2 evolution was 249.80 mg CO 2 /100g compost and having 1.80% water soluble carbon, thus found best in quality. Keywords: Co-composting, Paddy straw, Distillery effluent, compost and Compost quality *Correspondence Author: Suman Chaudhary Email: sumanchaudhary@hau.ernet.in