Co-Composting Date Palm Tree Wastes and its Effects on Soil Fertility

Abstract

UAE is one of the world major producer of dates. In 2015, the country had more than 42 million date palm trees and this number is increasing gradually. Every year there is more than 600,000 tons of date palm tree wastes are generated in farms. Since composting of date palm tree wastes is hard and slow, but when mixed with chicken manures it has been improved and time needed for maturation is greatly reduced, and the produced compost has better quality. Amended sandy soil with produced compost showed better physical, chemical and biological properties against control treatment (farm yard manure, FYM). In this experiment we used several treatments e.g chicken manure compost, CMC, and date palm tree composted wastes, DPTCW in different ratios, to evaluate its quality as organic fertilizer and to study its effects on the properties of sandy soils against control, FYM. CMC reached maturation faster than DPTCW and has higher contents of NPK nutrients than DPTWC, while organic matter and humus were different as composting activity performed. Tested sandy soil showed higher organic carbon content and its numbers of microorganisms has been increased in all treatments against control. Date fruits yield was increased in all treatments above control by 27-62% above control.