Evaluation of microbial community composition of dairy sewage sludge, corn silage, grass straw, and fruit waste biomass for potential use in biogas production or soil enrichment

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to link microbial community composition and chemical properties of various biomass and their resulting digestate residues for their potential use in biogas production or soil enrichment. The order of biogas production, graded from high to low was as follows: corn silage, grass silage, fruit waste, and dairy sewage sludge. Different bacterial families were predominant in different biomass. Corn silage deteriorated as a result of long-term air exposition and may serve as an efficient feedstock substrate for anaerobic digestion. A positive role in plant biocontrol microorganisms found in grass straw residues, and reasonable biogas yield obtained from this substrate suggests the use of grass straw for biogas production and its residues to enrich the soil. Due to potential threat of introducing pathogens into the soil within fruit waste or dairy sewage sludge, or soil acidification by fruit waste repeated use in field application, this biomass should be sanitized prior to soil application. Simultaneously, low biogas yields from fruit waste and dairy sewage sludge substrates make it necessary to transform them in anaerobic digestion with more energetic co-substrates. Tested residues may deliver a robust and wide range of methanogens as inoculum for further anaerobic digestion process.

Apple pomace microbiome carrying fungal load against phytopathogens – Considerations regarding application in agriculture and horticulture

“…A wide array of scientific activities and their resulting products, including biofertilizers, microbial pesticides, and bio-control agents, used to fight plant pathogens are present at the interface of applied microbiology and horticulture (Ray and Ward 2008). The use of advanced microbiological techniques and tools to characterize the genetic and functional diversity of the microbial community has also been recently proposed as a strategy in biowaste eco-toxicological evaluation (Oszust and Frąc 2018;Oszust et al 2018a).…”