By Victoria Nampala Bugembe
Due to fake products on the market like pesticides, and fertilisers which ruin the soil and make it infertile, experts have urged farmers to use natural fertilisers or manure to feed the soil.
Alicia Mbalire Namakula, a Biotechnologist says there are many ways of making manure naturally and the process is very cheap and affordable because it only requires biodegradable matter as the only raw material.
She explains that this is supposed to be kept anywhere safe like rubbish bins, composite pits, or any gazzated place, covered completely to rot, and turn into worms which become soil that is taken to the garden as manure.
“The manure is going to come from materials like food leftovers, cattle shed wastes, urine, and slurry from biogas plants, human urine, sewage, sludge, and sullage and poultry droppings,” she says.
She adds that slaughterhouse waste like bone, meat, blood, horn and hoof meal, and fish waste upon rotting creates an acidic fluid called leachate, on which the black soldier flies feed while making manure.
To make black soldier fly larvae for manure, Matini Janepher, the Cofounder and Finance Manager of Women Income Network says, all you need to do is bury the larvae into your compost pit since the flies thrive in moist, dark environments but they will come to the surface of the pit as they pupate.
“With black soldier fly manure, to yield much manure, one is supposed to supply the flies with much-processed materials and animal products,” she says.
When the manure is applied to soil in a garden, it contains high organic matter that aids in water retention of the soil.
It also contains nutrients like N-P-K but it should be noted that N-P-K, does not replace fertilizers.
Namakula encourages farmers who would like to use manure from black solder flies b (BSF) to first test the quality of manure produced to gauge the quality before adding it back to the garden.
“The caution must be taken seriously because BSF manure may have high levels of salts which can be harmful to some plants,” she says.
