Abstract: Regarding the difficult initiation of the composting in low-temperature winter, this study optimized the low-temperature initiating agent, and evaluated the application efficiency of the initiating agent for the manure compost production in an organic fertilizer plant in winter. The low temperature growth characteristics and protease production performance of the strains isolated from the antarctic poles were measured. Pseudomonas marginalis MP-1, Arthrobacter scleromae AS-3 and Arthrobacter oryzae AO-4 were selected for this study. The protease activity of MP-1, AS-3 and AO-4 reached 82.1, 64.3 and 80.3 U·mL^-1, respectively, when cultured at 15 ℃ for 24 h, they were mixed based on the ratio of 2∶1∶1 to make the bacterial initiating consortia (IM). The compost extract was made from the raw materials of Chinese medicinal residue, chicken manure and tea meal, and inoculated with the consortia to test their growth with these extracts. The results show that IM could grow to 1.04×10¹⁰ cfu·mL^-1 in the compost extract of Chinese medicinal residue for 24 h, to 1.41×10¹⁰ cfu·mL^-1 in chicken manure compost extract and to 3.6×10⁶ cfu·mL^-1 in tea meal extract. The results show that compared with the inoculators in commercial compost, IM could effectively promote the rapid starting of chicken manure compost under low temperature in winter. The temperature rising rate of IM treatment was 19.4 ℃·d^-1, while that of control group was 15.84 ℃·d^-1. The composting of IM reached the high-temperature stage 3 days earlier than that of the control treatment. On the 35^th day of composting, the contents of total P and total K in the IM treatment were increased by 2.32 and 4.27 percentage points, respectively, and the seed germination rate (GI) of IM treatment reached 93.3%, which was 10.2 percentage points higher than that of the control group. In conclusion, inoculation of IM can effectively promote the rapid initiation of low-temperature composting, shorten the composting cycle, promote the decomposition of toxic substances, accelerate the innoxious process of low-temperature composting, and improve the efficiency of low-temperature composting in winter.

Key words: composting, low temperature initiation, microbial agent, agricultural solid waste