Abstract
Selected Actinobacteria have been utilised in composting sheep litter/manure for use as organic fertiliser and to promote litter sanitation. For this purpose, 14 strains of Actinobacteria were isolated from composted sheep litter and checked for their antibiotic capability against E.coli and Clostridium spp. All strains were grown separately in the laboratory and used to inoculate sheep litter. Chemical and microbiological changes were studied during the composting process in lab-scale fermentors. After 2 months of treatment, the inoculated sheep litter resembled stable compost: chemical analyses confirmed humic-fulvic carbon increase, a C/N ratio reduction and an improvement of humification indexes. Isoelectric focusing of extracted humic-like matter showed an increase during the composting process of more stabilised organic compounds, directly correlated with the humification parameters. Microbiological analyses showed that in the inoculated litter, the number of pathogenic Clostridia rapidly decreased until total removal at the end of the composting process.
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Baccella, S. et al. (2002). Use of Actinobacteria in Composting of Sheep Litter. In: Insam, H., Riddech, N., Klammer, S. (eds) Microbiology of Composting. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08724-4_42
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08724-4_42
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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