Lack of sustainability in agricultural production owing to the gradual
deterioration in soil health is emerging as a major concern in Indian agriculture. This
behavior has largely been attributed to over-dependence on mineral fertilizers and
limited use of organic matter during the last several decades. To come out from this
situation, the necessity of larger incorporation of organic materials in the agricultural
soils is being emphasized at different levels. Since the availability of traditional organic
manures is gradually reducing in the country, while a plentiful amount of wide ranges
of biodegradable organic waste materials are being generated every day, growing
attention is now being paid to the recycling of these wastes as organic manures for
improving the health conditions of our arable soils. However, most of these organic
wastes cannot be directly added to the soils due to some limitations in their chemical as
well as biological properties and, therefore, adoption of various composting processes
is being suggested for this purpose. With the present thrust and encouragement from
the Government on waste recycling under the “Swachh Bharat Yojna”, a good number
of small and medium-scale industries have come up in this composting sector and
many more are in the pipe line. Now, composting is basically a process of
microbiological degradation of various organic materials to form humified end
products along with the release of various nutrient elements. Hence, for successful
implementation of any waste management program through composting, a thorough
knowledge of the roles of various microorganisms in the decomposition of varying
natures of organic wastes, their behaviors, successions, relative efficiency levels, etc.,
need to be understood thoroughly. In this article, various aspects of composting
microbiology have been discussed with special reference to the occurrence and
behavior of different microbes during the process of composting. Several aspects like
the relative efficiency of the microorganisms in degrading varying components of
organic wastes, microbial acceleration of composting, biological fortification of
compost quality, etc., have been discussed to provide a gross idea for efficient
microbiological management of the composting process.
Keywords: Acceleration, Composting, Efficiency, Fortification, Microbial processes, Successions.
