Conversion of Lignocellulosic Wastes into Biofertilizer using Bacterial Consortium ASMITA GAIKWAD, KAVITA JADHAV and SHUBHADA NAYAK* Department of Microbiology, Rayat Shikshan Sanstha's Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil College, Vashi, Maharashtra, India. Abstract Lignocellulosic biomass abundantly and ubiquitously occupies the earth. However, their complex molecular structure prevents their use as a source of organic material for fermentable sugars and nutrients to be used as foods, fertilizers and biofuels. For an efficient carbon cycle, microbial enzymes play a key role in slow biodegradation of lignocellulosic wastes in nature. Microbiological applications can enhance the rate of biodegradation to utilize agro-industrial and organic municipal solid wastes, containing up to 50% lignocellulose substrates, as an inexpensive and sustainable source of plant nutrients. With this hypothesis, the current study was carried out to prepare a consortium of lignocellulose degrading bacteria and use it to convert lignocellulosic substrates in garden, sugarcane, rice, cotton and fruit waste into biofertilizer. Overall, 7-14% reduction in cellulose and 3-6% reduction in lignin content, along with decrease in pH was observed on treatment of above wastes with microbial consortium in 42 days. In spite of the low conversion rates observed in our study, better root, shoot as well as leaf development was observed in moong seedlings grown in soil amended with biofertilizer (3:1 ratio) as compared to controls. Another interesting observation was the biofertilizers with low pH prepared from sugarcane wastes (pH 3.1) and fruit wastes (pH 3.6) supported plant growth more efficiently as compared to other biofertilizers (pH 5.0 to 5.7). Thus, in addition to feasible conversion of lignocellulosic wastes into biofertilizer, our study further suggests the use of selective wastes as raw material depending on the preference of plants for slightly acidic to neutral soil pH for growth. CONTACT Shubhada Nayak shubhadanayak@kbpcollegevashi.edu.in Department of Microbiology, Rayat Shikshan Sanstha's Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil College, Vashi, Maharashtra, India. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Enviro Research Publishers. This is an Open Access article licensed under a Creative Commons license: Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12944/CARJ.11.1.11 Article History Received: 08 January 2023 Accepted: 10 April 2023 Keywords Agrowastes; Biofertilizer; Consortium; Lignocellulose; Municipal Solid Wastes. Current Agriculture Research Journal www.agriculturejournal.org ISSN: 2347-4688, Vol. 11, No.(1) 2023, pg. 125-136 Introduction Lignocelluloses are complex organic carbohydrates that represent over 50% of the global biomass fixed with photosynthetic activity. 1 This accounts to the production of over 155 billion tons of dry lignocellulosic biomass produced every year. 2