India has a vast
potential of agricultural wastes. The major agricultural sources are livestock
and crop residues, tree wastes and weeds. With the introduction of high
yielding varieties and adoption of intensive system of cropping, large
quantities of crop residues (1500 lakh tone per year) along with huge amount of
grasses and weeds are discarded as waste. The direct application of these
wastes to the soil-plant system for crop production may create potential
hazards related to nutrient management, trace elements, trace organic chemicals,
pathogens and physical property of soil. Moreover, because of their wide range
of C:N ratio, these agricultural waste are known to reduce the availability of
important mineral nutrients to growing plant through immobilization into
organic form and also produce some phytotoxic substances during their
decomposition in field. Burning of such waste causes severe pollution of land
and water on local as well as regional scale. This also adversely affects the
nutrient budget in the soil. Mycoremediation is the use of fungi to degrade pollutants from the
environment. Fungi especially mushrooms have the innate capability to breakdown
wide range of agro-waste, disassembling their long-chained polymer into simpler
form by producing variety of extracellular enzymes. Hence, biological
pretreatment of such wastes with mushrooms is not only economically and
environmentally attractive but also it provides a rich addition to the diet in
form of functional food - The mushrooms. The agro-wastes left after
mushroom harvest is called Spent Mushroom Substrate (SMS) which can be further
composted to manure by using waste decomposer (Cellulolytic fungi) through
rapid composting method. Microbial enrichment of manure can be done for
improving its nutrient status. These products can be used to promote organic
farming in view of the growing demand for safe and healthy food and long term
sustainability and concern on environmental pollution associated with
indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals.(See Original)
Cited this as: Siddhant, O.P. Ukaogo, Ruchira Singh and Mahesh Kumar (2017): Mycoremediation can save the world. National seminar on "Bio-degradation of Wildlife, Environment and Biodiversity" organized by Department of Zoology, Gandhi Faiz-e-aam College, Shahjahanpur (U.P.). March 19-20, 2017. p. 92 (Abstract)