Composting is the controlled conversion of degradable organic products and wastes into stable products with the aid of microorganisms. Composting is a long-used technology, though it has some shortcomings that have reduced its extensive usage and efficiency. The shortcomings include pathogen detection, low nutrient status, long duration of composting, long mineralization duration, and odor production. These challenges have publicized the use of chemical fertilizers produced through the Haber–Bosch process as an alternative to compost over time. Chemical fertilizers make nutrients readily available to plants, but their disadvantages outweigh their advantages. For example, chemical fertilizers contribute to greenhouse effects, environmental pollution, death of soil organisms and marine inhabitants, ozone layer depletion, and human diseases. These have resulted in farmers reverting to the application of composts as a means of restoring soil fertility. Composting is a fundamental process in agriculture and helps in the recycling of farm wastes. The long duration of composting is a challenge; this is due to the presence of materials that take a longer time to compost, especially during co-composting. This review discusses the proper management of wastes through composting, different composting methods, the factors affecting composting, long-duration composting, the mechanism behind it, the present trends in composting and prospects. The extraction of mono-fertilizers from compost, development of strips to test for the availability of heavy metals and pathogens as well as an odor-trapping technique can go a long way in enhancing composting techniques. The addition of activators to raw materials can help to improve the nutritional quality of compost. This review further recommends that degradable organic material in which composts slowly should be assessed for their ability to mineralize slowly, which could make them advantageous to perennial or biennial crops. Viricides, fungicides, anti-nematodes, and anti-bacterial of plant or organic sources could as well be added to improve compost quality. The enhancement of composting duration will also be useful.

Identification of fungal species based on morphological characteristics is tedious, complex, prone to errors, and thus cannot be completely relied upon. In this study, internal transcribed spacers (ITS 1 and 4)—polymerase chain reaction was employed to amplify DNA of 19 mushroom isolates collected at Environmental Pollution Science and Technology farm, Ilesa, Southwest Nigeria. The PCR amplification of ITS1 and 4 of the mushrooms isolates yielded approximately 850 bp. Amplicons obtained were sequenced and identified using BLASTn in the NCBI. The BLASTn results revealed that Termitomyces aurantiacus (3), Tricholoma matsutake (8), Tricholoma robustum (2), P. ostreatus (4), Schizophyllum commune (1) and Pleurotus pulmonarius (1) were fully represented. Only Tricholoma matsutake (KT273371), Pleurotus pulmonarius (KY962469) and Tricholoma matsutake (AF438605) had 100% similarity with reference strain. However, the phylogenetic analysis of the isolates showed low genetic relatedness with reference strains. This study revealed the novelty of the mushroom strains and thus advocating the need for strict conservation measures and further investigations on their potential benefits to mankind.

Microbial bioremediation techniques continued to generate increasing interest due to its cost-effectiveness and being environmentally friendly. In the present study, Klebsiella variicola Wt, K. variicola MutAc and K.variicola MutEb were used to bioremediate Cd²⁺ and Pb²⁺ simulated contaminated soil in a pot experiment and their genetic variability were determined. The genetic variability among the Klebsiella variicola wild type and the mutant strains were investigated using 10 RAPD primers which revealed that 89.7% were polymorphic while 10.3% were monomorphic. The polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.52–0.86 while the diversity of the gene ranged from 0.56–0.88, this indicated an enormous heterozygosis associated with a high degree of polymorphism and diversity which make Klebsiella variicola mutant strains unique. The initial Cd²⁺ and Pb²⁺ in the simulated soil was 500 and 545 mg/Kg respectively while the Pb²⁺ concentration in the unsimulated soil was 45 mg/Kg. it was observed that K.variicola MutEb removed 14.6% of Cd²⁺ from the unsterilized soils while K.variicola MutAc removed 15.6% of Cd²⁺from the sterilized contaminated soils. However, K.variicola MutAc removed 27.8% and 11.6% of Pb²⁺ from the unsterilized and sterilized metal contaminated soils respectively. The results indicated that the autochthonous bacteria in the soil assisted in the remediation of the contaminated soil, most importantly, it was observed that the mutant strains performed better than the K.variicola wild type in terms of bioremediation potential, therefore, the strains could be suitable for the remediation of Cd²⁺ and Pb²⁺ contaminated soil.