Compost production is a critical component of organic waste handling, and compost applications to soil are increasingly important to crop production. However, we know surprisingly little about the microbial communities involved in the composting process and the factors shaping compost microbial dynamics. Here, we used high-throughput sequencing approaches to assess the diversity and composition...

Utilisation of Municipal Solid Waste is important to curb the ever rising demand of scarce land for its disposal. Changing life style patterns, particularly in urban areas, has led to increase in generation of MSW. Municipal solid waste from Indian cities estimated to have 40% 60% organic matter, which could be recycled as compost. The most suitable way to recycle it with low investment is aero...

Actinobacteria are widely distributed in many environments and represent the most important trigger to the occupant respiratory health. Health complaints, including hypersensitivity pneumonitis of the workers, were recorded in a mushroom compost facility (MCF). The studies on the airborne bacteria were carried out to find a possible microbiological source of these symptoms. Culture analysis of ...

A capability to determine the availability of nitrogen in organic amendments is necessary to ensure that such materials will provide sufficient nitrogen to the growing crop and cause minimal environmental degradation. Greenhouse bioassays were used to evaluate N availability of organic by-products, including several employed in the field study of this research. Tall fescue was grown in greenhou...

Samples of active and cured compost from across the U.S. are examined for volatile organic acids (VOA) in relation to other microbiological and chemical properties. VOA are considered important because they reflect temporal microbiological properties of active and cured compost that influence the potential for compost to become odorous and phytotoxic. Data collected from 712 compost samples rev...

Compost is the product resulting from the controlled biological decomposition of organic material that has been sanitized through the generation of heat and stabilized to the point that it is beneficial to plant growth. Compost bears little physical resemblance to the raw material from which it originated. Compost is an organic matter resource that has the unique ability to improve the chemical...

In many tropical regions, slash-and-burn agriculture is considered as a driver of deforestation; the forest is converted into agricultural land by cutting and burning the trees. However, the fields are abandoned after few years because of yield decrease and weed invasion. Consequently, new surfaces are regularly cleared from the primary forest. We propose a reclamation strategy for abandoned fi...

Compost and mulch blankets have been widely used for slope stabilization and erosion control at construction sites; however, the majority of research on these erosion control blankets has failed to meet state or federal specifications for particle size distribution. The primary objective of this study was to determine how blending wood mulch with compost may affect its performance as an erosion...

Outbreaks of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 infections associated with lettuce and other leaf crops have occurred with increasing frequency in recent years. Contaminated manure and polluted irrigation water are probable vehicles for the pathogen in many outbreaks. In this study, the occurrence and persistence of E. coli O157:H7 in soil fertilized with contaminated poultry or bovine ...