Black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) frass and sheddings as a compost ingredient

Summary

One of the byproducts from rearing Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) is its excrement, referred to as frass, and sheddings. As the commercial insect rearing industry is emerging in the U.S., there is not yet an established market for frass although the yield often exceeds that of BSFL by two- to three-fold. It has been suggested that frass could be converted into compost; however, there is a lack of literature investigating the effect of frass and larval sheddings inclusion on final compost quality. Accordingly, the objective of this study was to determine if BSFL frass and sheddings are a viable compost ingredient with the overarching purpose of identifying a potential market for an otherwise waste product of the insect-rearing industry. To address this objective, four experimental compost