Analysis of fermented liquid fertilizer from marine crab waste

Abstract

Soil is the main source of supplying essential nutrients for plant growth. In agricultural practice, when a particular nutrient or a group of nutrients are absent in the soil, it may affect the growth of the plant. Thus, most of the farmers practicing to apply chemical fertilizers to overcome the soil nutrient deficiency. Chemical fertilizers enhance the soil fertility on one hand whereas on the other hand it cause environmental pollution. Therefore alternative methods of soil nutrition practice must be considered. Hence this work focused to prepare fermented liquid fertilizer to enhance the plant growth. In the present study the fermented liquid fertilizer was prepared by fermenting the Portunussanguinolentus (Herbst, 1783) crab wastes with jaggery. After 15 days, the fermented liquid from crab waste was filtered and used for further study. The harvested liquid subjected to physico chemical and microbial analysis. The functional group and active compounds present in the fermented liquid was analyzed through FT-IR and GC-MS study. Phytotoxicity of the fermented liquid was determined through seed germination assay by using TMV-7 ground nut seeds. The result showed that the fermented liquid was diluted in water in the ratio of 1:100 exhibited higher seed germination when compared to other test dilutions and control. Thus the present work strongly supports the view that the traditionally fermented crab waste liquid contain high nutrients and active compounds and that may support the ground nut plant growth.