Abstract

Abstract: Water hyacinth, an aquatic weed plant hasoccupied the Sambhaji tank, Solapur, Maharashtra, India. This weed is removedfrom the tank periodically and dumped on the open ground and not disposedproperly. Therefore, the present investigation was carried out to recycle thisaquatic weed into useful by-product by vermicomposting technique with the helpof earthworm, Eudrilus euginae. The final product, i.e. vermicompost was subjectedfor the microbial population analysis. The results obtained from the analysisrevealed the maximum enrichment of the microbial communities in thevermicompost. The colony morphology study revealed the presence of diversespecies of bacteria and fungi in the vermicompost whereas, the microscopicstudy showed the presence of both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria inthe vermicompost. Hence, it is concluded that the water hyacinth weed waste canbe converted into enriched by-product by vermicomposting.

Keywords:Water hyacinth, Eudrilus euginae, vermicompost,microbial population, colony morphology.