The Benefits of Compost

For centuries, farmers have made and used compost to improve soil quality. Thanks to its many attributes, compost is extremely versatile and beneficial in many applications. 

1. Waste Reduction 

Composting can significantly cut down on your overall trash. By reusing waste, we could minimize the loss of valuable organic materials and return them to the soil as well as lessen the burden of landfill.

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2. Compost Helps Clean up Contamination

First of all, composting avoids the production of methane and leachate formulation in the landfills by utilizing organic materials diverted from there. Then, the composting process absorbs odors and treats semivolatile and volatile organic compounds. Compost itself has the ability to bind heavy metals, prevent them from taking up by plants or flowing into water. The microbes found in compost are also able to degrade some toxic organic compounds, including petroleum (hydrocarbons). In this case, compost is being used in bioremediation of petroleum contaminated soils. Compost can filter air and water of contaminants.

3. Supply Microbes and Organic Matter

Disease incidence on many plants may be influenced by the level and type of organic matter and microorganisms present in soils. Compost inoculates the soil with beneficial organisms such as nitrogen fixing bacteria, provides an abundant supply of organic matter to any soil.  

Microorganisms can facilitate organic matter decomposition which, in turn, leads to humus formation and nutrient availability. Microorganisms can also promote root activity, assisting them in the extraction of nutrients from soils. Sufficient levels of organic matter also encourage the growth of earthworms, which through tunneling, increase water infiltration and aeration.

4. Provides Nutrients 

Compost products contain a considerable variety of macro like nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium and micronutrients such as manganese, copper, iron and zinc. It often makes current fertilizer programs more effective. Compost can hold nutrients tight enough to prevent them from washing out, but loosely enough so plants can take them up as needed.

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5. Improve Soil Structure

Compost helps bind clusters of soil particles, providing soil that full of tiny air channels & pores that hold air, moisture and nutrients, helps roots penetrate the soil. If you add compost to clay soils, they will loosen and have better aeration and drainage. If you add compost to light sandy soils, they will hold more water. 

By benefiting soil structure, composts have been used with great success as a mulch for erosion control. The organic matter in compost holds all of the other soil elements in place, preventing erosion and silting on embankments parallel to creeks, lakes, and rivers, and prevents erosion and turf loss on roadsides, hillsides, playing fields, and golf courses. Besides, as a mulch, finished compost can suppress weeds.

6. Buffer pH and Temperatures 

Compost buffers the soil, neutralizing both acid & alkaline soils, more nutrients are available to your plants over a wider range of pH values. Enough organic matter makes the effect of the extremes in outdoor temperatures on your soil temperatures small.

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