Vermiwash as microbial inoculant improved compost quality and functional microbial succession in chicken manure composting

Chicken manure and agricultural residues represent abundant and readily available organic waste materials in agricultural systems worldwide, containing substantial quantities of organic matter and essential plant nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Previous research has demonstrated that vermiwash application can enhance plant growth, improve seed germination rates, increase nutrient uptake efficiency, and suppress soil-borne diseases when used as a foliar spray or soil drench in agricultural systems (Makkar et al., 2017). Despite these documented agronomic benefits, the potential of vermiwash as a microbial bioactivator to accelerate composting processes and improve compost quality parameters remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, the microbial community composition of vermiwash, the temporal dynamics of microbial succession during vermiwash-enhanced composting, and the functional metabolic pathways contributing to enhanced decomposition efficiency have not been comprehensively characterized using advanced molecular techniques. Therefore, developing effective and sustainable management strategies for chicken manure treatment has become an urgent priority to mitigate environmental pollution while recovering valuable nutrients for agricultural production systems. This study was therefore designed with three primary objectives: to evaluate the bioaugmentation potential of 20% vermiwash derived from chicken manure vermicomposting for enhancing composting processes; to assess the influence of vermiwash application on both composting process dynamics and final product quality parameters; and to comprehensively characterize the microbial community composition, diversity patterns, and temporal succession across all composting phases through 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, thereby elucidating key bacterial taxa and their functional contributions to organic matter degradation and nutrient cycling.