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People made compost from different components but they cannot realize about nutrient amount in the compost. So it is essential for selecting appropriate components. It is very important for organic vegetable cultivation.

I am mentioning some ingredients for compost:

  • Water Hyacinth
  • Cow Dung
  • Banana Tree
  • Rice Straw

It is ok for getting the appropriate amount of N, P, K ?

1 Answer 1

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The NPK of any home made compost is usually impossible to tell, but that's not the point of making compost, Alchemist.

Composted materials, once well rotted, provide high levels of humus for the soil. This improves the soil environment, which means you have greater levels of soil bio diversity and fertility, thus improving any plant's accessibility to available nutrients. Feeding with NPK balanced fertilisers (usually shop bought) is intended for feeding plants directly rather than improving the soil. They're usually delivered in a form which makes it easy for plants to take up (watered on or granules sprinkled around which dissolve slowly, releasing the nutrients directly around the plants, that kind of thing). Some fertilisers do a bit of both (adding to soil fertility and feeding directly), such as blood, fish and bone, which has a labelled NPK, but also contains organic material, though the NPK and humus levels themselves aren't very high.

To sum up, composted materials feed the soil; NPK labelled fertilisers feed plants, so the best solution is to use a combined approach, unless you're totally organic, in which case you'd only use certain composted materials.

As for what materials are best for your purposes, it's hard to say without writing a book, other than pointing out that any kind of manure is not suitable for use with any kind of root crop, that onions prefer an alkaline soil, whereas other vegetables don't, etc. Consideration should be given to which crops you're growing and what soil conditions they prefer, and for creating compost, whether or not you're using a hot aerobic system or an anaerobic one helps decide which materials you might choose to use.

UPDATED ANSWER In response to your question (posted as a comment) I'd refer you to the first sentence in this answer, and reiterate, as far as I know, there is no way to measure the NPK of home made compost. I suppose a laboratory might be able to, but it would be an imperfect guide, because the compost you've produced is probably not the same throughout. Compost made from organic materials is NOT a fertilizer as such, it's a soil improver, which is why you don't really need to know the NPK. More important is whether it's alkaline or acidic, and that you can tell with a ph tester.

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  • How can I measure the N, P, K amount in my compost producing from earlier mentioned components. Commented Nov 26, 2013 at 9:22

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