Modification in the Composting Environment through Additives

Abstract

Globally, huge amounts of crop residues are generated that are either fed to animals or are used for other purposes. Recycling crop residues opens new options for converting wastes into valuable products that can be used in farms for meeting crop nutrient requirements, maintaining soil health, crop productivity, and improving soil quality. Composting offers a proven avenue for best utilization of crop residues. Additives are materials that consist of nutrients, readily available forms of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, or other elements, enzymes, and microbial formulations that enhance microbial activity when in contact with the waste material. These materials, apart from modifying physical, chemical, and microbial properties, also help in improving the final quality of the compost. In this review, we summarize the importance of the additives during composting process. The first part of the review describes the composting process in general. Next part explains how the use of organic, inorganic, and biological additives results in various modifications in composting process by changing aeration, porosity, enhancing thermophilic phase, maturity, and nutritive value of compost. The last part explains how decomposed and nutritionally rich composts result in improvement of plant growth, development and modification in soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. Although the use of additives have mixed outputs, their use in composting provides new insights into modification of the composting environment.

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