Compost And Earthworms

Introduction

Aim: To compare the effectiveness of compost and earthworms on the germination and yield of a spinach crop.

Motivation: Fertilisers are mixture of chemicals that add nutrients to the soil to establish better yielding crops (Berger, 2013). Though these products have proved to provide many beneficial aspects to the agricultural sector, they have many negative environmental consequences. Fertilisers contain many substances, including mostly potassium, phosphorus, sulphur, calcium, magnesium and nitrogen. These substances, when they accumulate in the soil, can have harmful side effects on the environment and subsequently on the productivity of crops (Vimpany and Lines-Kelly, 2004). Many farmers tend to use a variety of fertilisers

However the soil needs to have additional nutrients for successful plant grow. These can be provided by adding earthworms or compost. Earthworms and compost are both natural; they can both be used by the rural population as alternatives to provide nutrition to the soil and produce healthy crops and they are affordable. Spinach is a one of the few healthiest vegetables containing 20 measurable nutrients (Livingstone contributor, 2012). It has a very short development time and can be grown twice a year. Therefore this experiment will attempt to discover whether earthworms or compost in the most effective methods of improving germination and yield of spinach.

Hypothesis:

a) The percentage of spinach seeds that germinate in the soil containing compost will be higher than that with earthworms.

b) The spinach yield, in terms of fresh mass of leaves will be higher in the soil containing compost than that with earthworms. As seen by the mass of all the plant leaves measured in grams.

Brief outline of

Wikipedia, no author, 2005. Fertilizer use by crop in South Africa. No author, 2013. Growing spinach; advice on how to grow. Garden patch, spinach. No author, undated. How does compost affect plant growth? Ehow .No author, 2014, April 3 .Poverty Trends in South Africa. Statistics South Africa, No author, 2014 South Africa’s population 2014. World population Review, No author, 2009 .The contribution of subsistence farming to food security in South Africa. (2009). Ideas, 24.No author, 2014. Trading Economics. Rural population in South Africa No author, undated. Why is eutrophication such a problem? UNEP) are all unreliable sources but they are useful. All the sources listed above have no author, therefore we are not sure how accurate the information might be. Sights like Nation Geographic can still be trusted because their known to produce high standard of information. Many the sources here are also limited to the writers’ knowledge because they give very general information that they understand. For instance a blog will not provide a lot of information on a specific subject only the little that the blogger