The Effect of Organic Amendments on Iron Mine Spoil: Through Earthworm Inoculation

Considerable quantity of mine spoil is generated during open cast mining of iron ore. Important physicochemical characters, bacterial load and heterotrophic respiration of iron mine spoil with and without organic amendment supplemented with earthworm (Eisenia foetida) inoculation have been studied over on incubation period of 28 days. Amended soil indicated enhanced pH, % organic C, P, N and K with respect to control. FYM treated spoil with worm indicated the highest bacterial count and heterotrophic soil respiration followed by poultry manure amended spoil. The least values were obtained from unamended spoil.