Comparison of different vegetable wastes and manure mixture medium towards the growth of Eisenia Fetida / Sharifah Amirah Syed Salim

A research has been conducted on vermicomposting of different vegetable wastes together with manure mixture medium by utilizing Eisenia fetida (earthworm) as the decomposer. The study aims to determine effect of growth size of earthworm and to investigate which vegetable wastes medium is more effective towards the growth of earthworm. The vegetable wastes used were Brassica oleracia (cabbage) and Spinacia oleracia (spinach). The treatment medium were prepared by mixing vegetable wastes, manure mixture and soil into three different ratio which are Treatment 1 (2:1:5) ratio, Treatment 2 (1:1:5) ratio and Treatment 3 (1:2:5) ratio that has total mass of 40 g, 35 g and 40 g respectively. Soil was added to all treatments for facilitating the burrowing mechanism of earthworm. The effect of growth size of Eisenia fetida was at the peak shown by Treatment 1 as total length gained was 3.5 cm, the total weight gained was 0.2131 g, total biomass gained was 0.0054 g and growth rate gained was 0.0308 g/worm/day which were the highest among the other treatments medium. Then, Treatment 1 was further investigate for the most effective vegetable wastes medium. Result shown Treatment 1 containing Brassica oleracia is the most effective as growth size of earthworms exhibit maximum reading in comparison with Spinacia oleracia and control medium.