MYCOREMEDIATION CAN SAVE THE WORLD

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)