COMPOSTA

UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE GUADALAJARA

PREPARATORIA LOMAS DEL VALLE

Teacher: Gustavo Cervantes

Students:

ANDREA ZAMORANO DE ACHA

ANDREA HERNÁNDEZ RAMCKE

BRIGITTE OLIVAS MANQUEROS

RODRIGO OSUNA RÍOS

Group: 6010

“First Partial Project”

GUADALAJARA, JALISCO, MARCH 2014-03-08

THEORY

Composting is a natural process of recycling organic material such as leaves and vegetable scraps into a rich soil amendment that gardeners fondly nickname Black Gold. Make a habit of adding compost to the soil each planting season because it is rich in nutrients, and it promotes soil microbes that aid plant growth. In a nutshell, compost is decomposed organic matter.

Compost is the product resulting from the controlled biological decomposition of organic material. It’s the stable humus-like product resulting from the biological decomposition of organic matter under controlled conditions.

-The Many Benefits Of Compost

Compost energizes the soil food web, which is made up of microscopic bacteria and fungi, along with earthworms, crickets, and many other life forms. Many fungi form symbiotic, or mutually rewarding, partnerships with plant roots, making it possible for vegetables to feed themselves more efficiently. Research shows that compost enhances the ability of tomatoes and other vegetables to stand up to common diseases and may improve their flavor and nutrition, too. Compost also helps the soil retain moisture. Through composting you enhance your garden’s ability to grow healthy plants while reducing your volume of trash.

-Oxygen as our Variable

The most effective microbes for converting organic residuals to premium top soil and soil conditioners are aerobic microbes. "Aerobic" means they work in the presence of oxygen, that they consume oxygen. In the absence of oxygen the entire chemistry changes and foul odors and phyto-toxic VFA's can be produced.

All fungi are strict aerobes.

Preventing Foul Odors seems to be simply a matter of maintaining Aerobic conditions. Some compost feed stocks are by nature great hosts for micro-organisms that consume a lot of oxygen. When the micro-organisms consume all the available oxygen then the process goes Anaerobic and foul odors are a common result.

HYPOTHESIS

We believe that as days pass, the volume of the leaves will decrease and the higher the temperature is, the lower the volume will be. And also, that the grapefruit peel will begin to disintegrate.

-Variable

Our manipulated variable is oxygen, therefore after adding a cupful of water we stir the leaves every 12 hrs. each day per one week.

EXPERIMENTATION

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