Elaboración de compost a partir de cáscara de cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) en la Estación Experimental Latitud “0”.

Abstract

The present experimental research work was carried out at the Latitud Cero experimental station, with the objective of evaluating the different percentages of composting based on cocoa shell (Theobroma cacao L.) clone CCN51 and Nacional as organic fertilizer to improve the fertility of the soil and plant production, through the use of cocoa crop waste (shell), which is not processed properly, for the test a DBCA with AxB factorial arrangement with 4 repetitions was used. The variables under study were: Temperature, pH, humidity, loss of density and production costs, checking the sources of variability of the treatments under study through an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Tukey test indicated significant differences (p> 0.05) between the treatments for the variable average temperature from 45 °C in the first month to 49.9 °C, in the fourth month, the pH started at 6.8 ± 0.3 to 7.4 in the different treatments, The % humidity ranged from (52.86%)to (53.50%). The results of laboratory analysis carried out on compost based on Nacional cocoa shell and CCN-51 cocoa reflect contents of NPK, Ca, Mg, S, B, Zn, Fe and Mn, as a result of the composting process, they were obtained between 13 .61 kg of compost in treatment A1B2, 13, 041 kg of compost in treatment A1B1 and in treatments A2B2 and A2B1 were obtained 11.34 Kg and the K content in organic potash was 3.79% in National cocoa samples and 3.90% in CCN-51 cocoa sample, the production costs of composting based on cocoa shell (Theobroma cacao L) National cacao and Cacao CCN-51 the production costs of a ton of compost based on cocoa shell (Theobroma cacao L) National cocoa and CCN-51 cocoa where the treatments were obtained: Treatment (10 grams of BIOBAC + 20L of water + molasses) and Treatment (20 g of BIOBAC + 20L of water + molasses) combined with the Nacional and CCN-51 cocoa shells gave a total of $768.30 USD.