Effect of fertilizer prepared from human feces and straw on germination, growth and development of wheat

Solid waste treatment is one of the most important rate-limiting steps in the material circulation and energy flow of Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS). In our previous work, an efficient and controllable solid waste bio-convertor has been built and a solid waste degradation efficiency of 41.0% has been reached during a 105-d BLSS experiment. However, the fermented residues should be further utilized to fulfill the closure of the system. One solution might be to use the residues as the fertilizer for plant cultivation. Thus in this study, substrates were prepared using different ratios of the fermented residues to the vermiculite. And the influences of different ratios of the fermented residues on the seed germination, growth, photosynthetic characteristics and antioxidant capacity of wheat were studied. The results showed that the optimal rate of the fermented residue was 5%. With this ratio, the seed germination reached 97.3% with the root length, shoot length and biomass production as 59 mm, 52 mm and 150 mg, respectively, at the 4th day. Besides, the highest straw height of 25.1 cm was obtained at the 21st day. The salinity adversely affected the growth and some relevant metabolic processes of wheat. The Group-40% led to the lowest seed germination of 34.7% and the minimum straw height of 15 cm. This inhibition might be caused by the high Na content of 2118 mg/kg in the fermented residues. Chlorophyll b was more sensitive to the mineral nutrition stress and affects the wheat photosynthetic characteristics. Higher reactive oxygen species levels and reduced antioxidant enzymes may contribute, directly and/or indirectly, to the decline in the observed pigment contents in wheat.