Inefficient-looking composting promotes the elimination of guild-plant pathogens fungi in vegetable wastes

The carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio is an important factor determining composting efficiency, while the relationships among relative abundance of guild-plant pathogens fungi, compost maturation index and microbial community variation influenced by C/N ratio during vegetable waste composting still remain limited. To address this, fungal communities during the composting processes with C/N ratio of about 15 (CN15) and 25 (CN25) with vegetable waste as main raw materials were analyzed. Compared to CN25, CN15 showed the faster microbial community variation and the better compost maturation index overall the composting process. Nevertheless, CN25 revealed the higher falling range in eliminating guild-plant pathogens fungi than CN15.Notably, relative abundance of guild-plant pathogens fungi was significantly negatively related to compost maturity index in CN25 treatment, while no significant relationship was observed in CN15 treanment. This study suggests that the inefficient-looking composting with slow temperature rising in the early stage is beneficial to kill guild-plant pathogens fungi in vegetable waste.