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Composting is Mother Nature’s original form of recycling. Simply, composting is the controlled biological decomposition and conversion of solid and liquid organic materials into a humus-like product. Managed composting, while somewhat limited in the U.S. since the green revolution, is a popular and successful animal waste and plant residue management option world-wide. It is more preferable to landfilling, incineration and roadside dumping. The benefits of the act of composting include a reduction in volume of compost inputs, destruction of pathogens, reduction in weed seeds, the degradation of many potentially harmful organic compounds, the binding-up of high-nitrogen materials such as manures, and the production of a useful soil amendment.

A soil incubation experiment was carried out in a complex experimental system to simulate the effect of environ- mental factors (temperature, soil moisture, lucerne shoot powder as plant residue with mineral N, and mineral P addition), and 3 trace elements (Mn, Zn, Cu) on the available N content (NH4 +-N and NO3 -N) of two soils. The applied DISITOBI model assures information about the experimental object characterized by a multidimensional response function.