Rice Straw-Based Composting

Current practices in rice production leave a huge amount of wet straw on the field, which cannot be used as feed or for food production. Compost production is one way of effectively utilizing rice straw. Spent rice straw from mushroom production is also used as compost but this has low nutrient value and is poorly decomposed when using it as a soil improver. This wet, low-quality straw, as well as byproducts from mushroom and cattle feed production, could be used to produce better-quality compost to return nutrients back to the field. Mechanization in mixing the materials, i.e., a compost turner, is necessary to have good aeration, increase the decomposition process, and reduce labor cost. This chapter provides an overview of composting technology and current practices of rice-straw composting. Updated information on this topic, resulting under the current BMZ-funded IRRI rice-straw management project (2016–2019), which has been implemented in Vietnam and the Philippines, is also included here, particularly in the sections on vermin-composting and mechanized composting.