Synergistic Effect of Fungal Consortia and C/N Ratio Variation on Rice Straw Degradation
2020
Sheetal Barapatre, Mansi Rastogi, Babita Khosla and Meenakshi Nandal
In this study, the efficiency of fungal consortia was evaluated on the degradation of rice straw by varying the initial carbon/nitrogen ratio of the compost piles. Consortia of three potent cellulose-degrading fungal strains: Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus terreus and Aspergillus flavus were used as an inoculant to degrade rice straw in a 90-day composting process. The carbon/nitrogen ratio of the composting piles was varied by varying the proportion of bedding material in different treatments. The composts thus achieved were subjected to physic-chemical analysis and phytotoxicity assay using Solanum lycopersicum as test seeds. After 90 days of composting, compost from treatment 4 with initial carbon/nitrogen ratio 34 depicted maximum stability by achieving a final carbon/nitrogen ratio of 16.25. Compost from treatment 4 showed the highest Germination Index (%) followed by treatment 3 and treatment 2 as 94.32%, 88.88% and 79%, respectively on the growth of Solanum lycopersicum seeds. Results concluded that fungal consortia derived agro-waste compost with an initial carbon/nitrogen ratio 34 depicted the earliest maturity which is suggestive of its suitability for agricultural application.
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