ABSTRACT
The nutrient components in organic compost leachate made from fruits and vegetable wastes were examined using spectrometry methods. This was done to determine the possibility of replacing inorganic fertilizers with organic leachates as fertilizers to meet crop nutrient requirements. The compost was prepared anaerobically, the leachate was collected at different weeks and taken for analysis. The different nutrient determined were total nitrogen, total phosphorous, potassium, ammonium nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen, sulphate, total organic carbon, total organic nitrogen, etc. The result obtained revealed an increase in pH value of the leachate from 6.8(which is acidic owing to the early stages of decomposition) to 7.93 showing that the matured compost leachate became neutralized. Also, nutrient values of total nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen, total phosphorous, phosphate decreased as compost matured while values of total sodium, magnesium, and potassium increased steadily. However, intermittent variations in the values of nitrate nitrogen (1123.96, 411.68, 2178.22), total organic nitrogen (400.20, 280.14,380.19), total organic carbon (8004,5602.80,7603.80), sulphate (150.99,91.81,129.38) and calcium (2.40,2.30,6.28) were observed and this could be as a result of increased aeration rate. The study revealed that leachate of organic compost contains some necessary amount of macro and micronutrients, such as N, P, K which may be useful in replacing inorganic fertilizers with organic leachates as fertilizers to meet crop nutrient requirement.
