17 IKRAM ULLAH Ahmad Bukhary Ahmad Khair Muhammad Salman Khan Saboor Badshah Eliana Ibáñez-Arancibia Mushtaq Ahmad Khan Monsif ur Rehman R. De los Ríos-Escalante Mohammad Attaullah Farhad Badshah Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences JAPS 20262026/01/20 36 1 104-115 1018-7081 https://doi.org/10.36899/JAPS.2026.1.0009 <p>Soil fertility plays pivotal role in adopting intensive agricultural approaches which are becoming popular and essential to feed the ever-increasing population with limited available resources.&nbsp;<span lang="EN-MY">The use of organic fertilizers offers a sustainable approach by improving soil fertility and reducing dependence on chemical fertilizers.&nbsp;</span>We investigated the production level of frass, an organic fertilizer, by Black Soldier Fly (BSF) when fed with animal and plant-based substrates.<span lang="EN-MY">While being c</span><span lang="EN-MY">ommercial, plant-based compost fertilizer was used as a standard positive control and was labelled as CPC.</span><span lang="EN-MY">Plant based wastes reduce the decomposition rate for Organic Nitrogen (ON) and ON-NH₄⁺&nbsp;when used as a feeding substrate for black soldier fly larvae (BSFL). On the other hand, it enhances the decomposition rate for total crude fibre (TCF), NH₄⁺-NO₃^-&nbsp;and NO₃^-&nbsp;uptake rate. Contrary to this, we observed highest decomposition rate for ON and ON-NH₄⁺&nbsp;and lowest decomposition rate for TCF and NH₄⁺-NO₃^-&nbsp;along lowest NO₃^-&nbsp;uptake rate by BSFL using animal-based wastes as feeding substrate. Frass produced by black soldier fly when fed with plant-based substrate (BSFFP) recorded a balanced uptake ratio for NH₄⁺:NO₃^-&nbsp;(33:37), whereas Black soldier fly frass based on animal-feeding (BSFFA) recorded unbalanced uptake ratio for NH₄⁺:NO₃^-&nbsp;(40:08). Commercial plant-based compost fertilizer (CPC) used as the positive control, recorded higher NH₄⁺&nbsp;uptake (25) compared to NO₃^-&nbsp;uptake (17). Furthermore, the use of CPC showed the lowest rate of ON-NH₄⁺&nbsp;(0.36 &plusmn; 0.002) as well as lower NH₄⁺-NO₃^-&nbsp;rate (0.60 &plusmn; 0.003) compared to BSFFP. This study highlighted the importance of both ON form and TCF decomposition rates as key determinants for effective nitrification (NH₄⁺-NO₃^-) and NO₃^-&nbsp;uptake of BSFF frass-based fertilizer.</span></p> Black soldier fly; plant-based substrate; animal-based substrate; polyphagous; frass; nitrification; nitrate uptake Pakistan Agricultural Scientists Forum https://thejaps.org.pk/AbstractView.aspx?mid=2025-JAPS-93