Effect of cold-adapted microbial agent inoculation on enzyme activities during composting start-up at low temperature

In order to put forward a method to promote composting start-up at low ambient temperature, the cold-adapted microbial agent (CAMA) was inoculated in chicken manure (CM), and compared the enzymes activities, including urease, proteases, β-glucosidase and invertase, with no CAMA group (CK). In this study, the temperature of CM reached 50 °C in 53 h, but it in CK was only around 30 °C during the composting process. Moreover, the enzymes exhibited higher activity in CM than CK, indicating the effectiveness of CAMA. Furthermore, redundancy analysis was conducted to study the relationships of CAMA, with enzymes activities and temperature. Results showed that the positive effect of CAMA on the enzyme activities were achieved by affecting the bacterial community structure. Accordingly, we provide a method to guide CAMA inoculation for promoting compost start-up in cold area.