The Effect of Turning and Watering Compost

According to past Edgewood studies, goose manure is one of the best decomposers in compost. Composting is important because it makes the process of decomposing faster and more efficient. Composting also makes the water purer and cleaner because it eliminates debris. Storm water contamination occurs when oil, salt, and sand runs off roads, lawns, and driveways into nearby streams and lakes in the watershed. Last week our watershed ecology class turned the compost. We want to see did the bins get hotter or colder, and which compost bin changed temperature the most?

The question we will attempt to answer is how did the compost temperature change since we turned it?

Our hypothesis is that all of the bins will get hotter. Lamonte' thought that bin number 3 (Low apples and High manure) would increase the most. He thought that the high manure would make the compost become warmer because of the rate of metabolism. Colm thought that bin number 1(low manure and low apples) would be the hottest because there wouldn't be as much nutrients to decompose. We are using temperature because it is a measure of the metabolism of the decomposing organism. High temperatures show that the decomposing process is taking place faster.

Methods
Fall of 2002 Edgewood College students setup a compost experiment. They filled bins with oak leaves and different quantities of food and manure. Now we are continuing their experiment with the same bins. We took off the compost bin plastic lid and got a pitchfork. Then, we turned the compost and found the data loggers. Next, we downloaded the data loggers. After that we got the info off the computer and turned it into graph form.

(We used Box Car and Microsoft Excel to make our compost information and turn it into a graph.)

Colm is holding the data logger and its capsule.

Results
We found that since we turned the compost bins all of them have gone up in temperature. Bin number 9 went up the most drastically. It went from 86 degrees F to 133 degrees F in six days! Bin number 1 was the lowest but rose a little bit. It rose from 73 degrees F to 105 degrees F.

This is the graph of bins one through nine and their temperatures. Use for reference for results and discussion & conclusion.

Discussion and Conclusion
Our results tell us that since we turned the compost they have gotten hotter. Bin 9 had made a drastic change in temperature. It made that change because it had the most apples and manure in it. Bin number 1 was the lowest because it had low apples and manure in it. Apples and manure must be better composting material.

For further research you could maybe start your own compost and check it everyday for a year. First, get some bins and put different amounts of apples and goose manure in them. Check them every day for a month and write down the temperature. Then turn the bins, and repeat the instructions. Now, compare how much hotter each bin has gotten Other studies, like Cornell Composting, show that composting could help the watershed by putting goose poop, leaves and other debris in a bin and we can keep it out the parks, public places, gutters and watersheds.