COMPARATIVE EFFICACY OF BLACK SOLDIER FLY (Hermetia illucens) FRASS DERIVED FROM ANIMAL-BASED AND PLANT-BASED WASTES ON NITRIFICATION RATE AND NITRATE UPTAKE IN Amaranthus dubius - 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, 2026)
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. The use of organic fertilizers offers a sustainable approach by improving soil fertility and reducing dependence on chemical fertilizers. We investigated the production level of frass, an organic fertilizer, by Black Soldier Fly (BSF) when fed with animal and plant-based substrates.While being commercial, plant-based compost fertilizer was used as a standard positive control and was labelled as CPC.Plant based wastes reduce the decomposition rate for Organic Nitrogen (ON) and ON-NH4+ 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- and NO3- uptake rate. Contrary to this, we observed highest decomposition rate for ON and ON-NH4+ and lowest decomposition rate for TCF and NH4+-NO3- along lowest NO3- 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- (33:37), whereas Black soldier fly frass based on animal-feeding (BSFFA) recorded unbalanced uptake ratio for NH4+:NO3- (40:08). Commercial plant-based compost fertilizer (CPC) used as the positive control, recorded higher NH4+ uptake (25) compared to NO3- uptake (17). Furthermore, the use of CPC showed the lowest rate of ON-NH4+ (0.36 ± 0.002) as well as lower NH4+-NO3- rate (0.60 ± 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- uptake of BSFF frass-based fertilizer.
Keywords: journal article; Black soldier fly; plant-based substrate; animal-based substrate; polyphagous; frass; nitrification; nitrate uptake