Development and assessment of microbial consortium for composting of organic waste

Abstract

Fungi, bacteria and actinomycetes play unique and important roles during composting, mixed cultures of microorganisms enhance the rate of lignocellulose degradation due to their synergistic activity through utilization of intermediate degradation products commonly known as microbial consortium. Among bacterial isolates B-8, B-34, B-39 and B-43, among actinomycetes isolates A-1, A-26, A-29 and A-31 were found compatible with each other. From the isolates B-39, B-43, A-1 and A-31 having highest CM Case and endoglucanase activity were used for development of liquid consortium on specifically developed media. Solid consortium of fungi developed on boiled sorghum grains were found to be viable up to 90 days. Liquid consortium of bacteria and actinomycetes were found viable up to 180 days on the basis of cellular colony count. Banana substrate was found to be degraded early in 105 days, followed by sugarcane waste in 128 days, banana + cotton + sugarcane in 144 days, cotton waste in 148 days and banana + cotton + sugarcane waste i.e. uninoculated control took maximum 171 days for decomposition. At maturity of compost slight variation was found in all substrates in case of pH, EC, organic matter content, N, P, K, C:N ratio and micronutrients as compared to uninoculated control.