Struvite for composting of agricultural wastes with termite mound: Utilizing the unutilized

Abstract Although, compost is the store house of different plant nutrients, there is a concern for low amount of major nutrients especially nitrogen content in prepared compost. The present study deals with preparation of compost by using agricultural wastes with struvite (MgNH 4 PO 4 ·6H 2 O) along with termite mound. Among four composting mixtures, 50 kg termite mound and 2.5 kg struvite with crop residues (stover of ground nut: 361.65 kg; soybean: 354.59 kg; potato: 357.67 kg and mustard: 373.19 kg) and cow dung (84.90 kg) formed a good quality compost within 70 days of composting having nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium as 21.59, 3.98 and 34.6 g kg −1 , respectively. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the composts. The four composts formed two (pit 1, pit 2 and pit 3, pit 4) different groups. Two principal components expressed more than 97% of the total variability. Hierarchical cluster analysis resulted two homogeneous groups of composts.