Bioaugmenting compost microbial community with selected bacteria to enhance beneficial effects on plant growth and health

"The modern agriculture is characterized by the large use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides which. beside representing a large economic burden for the farms are responsible for environmental and. human problems (Alfano et al., 2011a). Even in a small Italian Region like Molise more than 2900. tons of fertilizers and more than 231 tons of fungicides (ISTAT, 2009) are used per year. The. European Commission by directives 91\/676 and 2009\/128 pushes strongly towards the adoption of. sustainable agro-ecosystems in which the competitiveness of agricultural production is closely. linked to the environment protection.. In Molise, it was estimated that over 20 thousand tons of olive husks and more than 15 thousand m3. of olive wastewater are generated per year. Furthermore, around 20-70 kg of prunings per tree are. produced each year. So far, the widely used methods for disposal of olive waste (OW) have been. field spreading and combustion for OW and prunings, respectively. Beside causing the. environmental impact (antimicrobial and phytotoxic effect, CO2 emission), this practice is even the. cause of loss of valuable resources including a large amount of organic matter, a wide range of. nutrients and antioxidants (Alfano et al., 2009; Alfano et al., 2011a).. The composting process proved to be one of the most reliable method for bioremediation and. valorization of OW, and it allows to avoid the harmful effect on the soil that could be caused by the. spreading of untreated wastes, combining the recovery of valuable resources with environmental. protection (Roig et al., 2006; Alfano et al., 2011a, 2011b). Composting has been proved to be an. effective way to transform OWs into valuable, high-quality agricultural amendments and fertilizers. particularly suitable for organic farming systems. Moreover, it has been reported that OW compost. can actively contribute to the biological control of several plant pathogens and that this effect is. essentially biological in nature (Alfano et al., 2011b).. In this context the BioCompost project (POR-FESR 2007-2013) was born as a response to the. double need of some olive oil producer to sustainably and economically dispose of OW and of some. farm\/nursery to reduce fertilizers and pesticides costs. The project was built creating an olive mill. waste transformation and reuse chain, linking several different regional farms and companies. including olive mills, farms, nurseries, biotech companies, etc.. Aims of the project are: 1) valorization of olive mill wastes through composting technologies in. olive mills; 2) screening and selection in lab of plant beneficial microbial agents (bio-control) and. their massive multiplication in industrial fermentation plants; 3) bio-augmentation of raw and cured. composted residues with selected microbial agents with beneficial effects on plant growth and. health (bio-suppressive activity); 4) use of advanced bio-activated composts in farms and nurseries."