Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Botany Department, Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
2
Agricultural Microbiology Research Department,Soils, Water and Environment Research Institute(SWERI), Agriculture Research Center (ARC).Egypt
Abstract
T
HIS study aimed to get a simple and reliable method to enhance the shelf life of compost tea. Freshly prepared compost tea was dispensed into transparent 1.5 L plastic bottles, enabling visual monitoring, with each bottle containing 1.3 L of compost tea. The treatments included T1 (3 mM sodium nitrate), T2 (6 mM sodium nitrate), T3 (0.2 mM sodium molybdate), T4 (0.4 mM sodium molybdate), and T5 (control without additives). The experiment was conducted in triplicate, and the bottles were stored in darkness at room temperature. Samples were withdrawn from each bottle at intervals of 2, 5, 10, 15, 25, and 30 days for analysis. At the end of the storage period, compost tea preparations underwent FT-IR analysis, revealing critical molecular features. A controlled pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the in vivo efficacy of the stored compost tea by assessing its impact on the growth and developmental progress of Corchorus Olitorius plants. Additionally, the enumeration of distinct microbial communities within the rhizosphere of the growing plants was performed. After 30 days, the most effective treatments compared to the control (T5) were T2 with increased bacterial Colony Forming Unit (CFU) (7.21) and Total Fungal colony (4.23), while T1 and T2 showed higher Azotobacter counts (4.95 and 5.00) respectively. However, T5 consistently displayed the lowest counts for Spore Formers Bacterial Unit (3.84). After extended storage, a control treatment exhibited new peaks at 1792 cm^-1 and 1175 cm^-1 suggested chemical changes, potentially carbonyl-containing compounds. These findings may have significant implications for sustainable agricultural practices and the utilization of compost tea as an environmentally friendly soil amendment.
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