Millicomposting
A new way of composting.
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What is millicomposting?
Millicomposting is composting with the aid of millipedes. It is a new way of composting.
Millicomposting is a new biotechnology, little known and environmentally friendly, which provides the biotransformation of plant residues into stable organic matter, which is promoted by the activity of diplopods, popularly called millipedes (Antunes, et al 2022).
What are millipedes?
From the prefix milli, the name millipede depicts its number of feet. Although milli means a thousand, millipedes' feet are only approximately a couple of hundreds less.
Millipedes are macrodetritivores that eat decaying organic matter.
They can vary from different species and sizes, but they are commonly seen in a moist environment. They have their role in maintaining the health of the soil. (More about the roles of millipedes on the soil here https://link.medium.com/SpMZ7bF4Iyb )
Millipedes were not given so much attention (not as much vermi worms) until new research found out that millipedes have the same characteristic as earthworms in feeding on organic composts and giving off soil nutrients as their wastes.
Research even suggests that millicomposting end products contain slightly more nutrients like nitrogen, carbon, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium than that of vermicomposting.
Benefits of Millicomposting
From classic composting, in which microbial activity is of decisive importance, to composting mediated by invertebrates from the soil fauna, such as vermicomposting and millicomposting, different mixtures, practices and managements have been proposed with the objective of improving the efficiency of composting and the quality of the compost produced (Antunes, et al 2022).
Millicomposting has been studied. It proved to be efficient and to produce quality compost.
Diplopods (or millipedes) can metabolize 0.3–7% of the ingested material and, when excreting microbial activity, continue in their fecal pellets, which increases the bioconversion of plant residues (Ambarish and Sridhar, 2013) as cited by Antunes et al., (2022).
When the litter passes through the millipedes' digestive tract, this material is crushed, which increases its specific surface, moistened and enriched with microorganisms (Aquino and Correia, 2005) as cited by Antunes et al., 2022.
Millipedes are able to mobilize nutrients trapped in litter and enrich the soil with nitrogen (N), carbon (C), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), in microcosm situations (Antunes et al., 2019) as cited by Antunes et al., 2022.
Conclusion
Millipedes are macrodetritivores living in a moist environment doing their role in keeping soil health.
Millicomposting has become a thing when it was found on newer research that millipedes can also contribute to composting as much as the popularly known vermi worms, if not better.
Millicomposting is a biotechnological way of composting using millipedes as decomposers.
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