Effects of Vermicompost Leachate versus Inorganic Fertilizer on Morphology and Microbial Traits in the Early Development Growth Stage in Mint (Mentha spicata L.) And Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) Plants under Closed Hydroponic System

The objective of this study was to compare the morphology of M. spicata and R. officinalis plants, and the relative abundance quantification, colony-forming units, ribotypes, and biofilm former bacteria under an inorganic fertilizer and the use of vermicompost leachate in the rhizosphere under a closed hydroponic system. In mint (Mentha spicata) plants treated with the vermicompost leachate, growth increase was determined mainly in root length from an average of 38 cm in plants under inorganic fertilizer to 74 cm under vermicompost leachate. In rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), no changes were determined between the two treatments. There were differences in the compositions of microbial communities: For R. officinalis, eight ribotypes were identified, seven for inorganic fertilizer and four for vermicompost leachate. For M. spicata, eight ribotypes were identified, three of them exclusive to vermicompost leachate. However, no changes were observed in microbial communities between the two treatments. Otherwise, some changes were observed in the compositions of these communities over time. In both cases, the main found phylum was Firmicutes, with 60% for R. officinalis and 80% for M. spicata represented by the Bacillus genus. In conclusion, the use of vermicompost leachate under the hydroponic system is a viable alternative to achieve an increase in the production of M. spicata, and for both plants (mint and rosemary), the quality of the product and the microbial communities that inhabited them remained unaltered.


Introduction
At present, the growing global population has put pressure on agriculture in different ways: the increase in demand for food and the need to meet this demand in an environmentally friendly manner. Although the use of chemical fertilizers has led to an enhancement in crop production, several major health-and environment-related concerns are associated with their use [1,2]. Pollution and the increase in global temperature are predicted to have negative consequences for agriculture in the coming decades [3]. Likewise, future climatechange scenarios predict a more frequent occurrence of extreme conditions [4]. In this sense, hydroponic systems have emerged as an alternative to improve yield, product quality, water management, land saving, nutrient recycling, and environmental and pathogen control. Hydroponic systems are cultivation technologies that use nutrient solutions rather facility were 21.4, 31.8, and 8.9 • C, respectively, with a mean of 70% relative humidity. Meteorological records were obtained during the study from an automated weather station located inside the shade-enclosure facility.

Plant Cultivation Conditions and Hydroponic System
The experiment was carried out from September to November. M. spicata and R. officinalis cuttings were obtained from mother plants within their regional cultivars and were placed in pots with vermiculite until they developed enough roots to be able to absorb nutrients from fertilizers after applying the treatments. The pots were placed in 30 propylene containers of 20 L (24.5 × 16 × 10 cm (length × width × height)) filled with water. Oxygen supplementation in containers was provided with a Blogger Sweetwater pump (model SST20, 50 Hz). The water volume was maintained constant to build a closed hydroponic system; there was no recirculating water because the study was on the early vegetative stage (September to November).

Treatments and Experimental Design
The experimental design consisted of two treatments: one applying vermicompost leachate (L) and the other applying inorganic fertilizer (SS; control group) [26]. Vermicompost leachate (L) was produced at the CIBNOR experimental field according to recommendations by Gunadi et al. [27]. The vermicomposting process was carried out in 200 L containers cut in half, to which 5 holes were made in its base. Subsequently, a 5 cm thick layer of gravel and an antiaphid mesh were placed to separate the gravel from the bed where the earthworms developed. Kitchen waste and manure were used as food for the earthworms in a ratio of 1:1 volume:volume. Both kitchen waste and manure were precomposted for 21 days before being used as food for the earthworms. The feeding process was carried out using 5 cm thick layers of precomposted food every week for 12 weeks. The vermicomposting process was considered to have ended when a homogeneous material was observed without the presence of remnants of the original material. The vermicompost was separated to be laid and sheltered in a dry place and away from light for 90 days for its mineralization. Vermicompost leachate was obtained according to the methodology described by García-Galindo et al. [28], where 5 kg of vermicompost was placed in a container. Three liters of distilled water was poured into the container, and the leachate was collected. Information of the nutrient content of both inorganic fertilizer and vermicompost leachate is shown in Table 1. The experiment was established under a completely randomized design with 15 replicates for each treatment (vermicompost leachate and inorganic fertilizer). Each replicate consisted in a container before descripted with 12 pots, each pot with one plan. Treatments were applied once at five days after sowing (DAS), for inorganic fertilizer a commercial fertilizer of 17% NPK was used to prepared 10 mL that contained 0.0079, 0.000087, 0.070 (parts per million of N, P K, respectively) diluted in 40 L of top water (the capacity of pot container). For the vermicompost-leachate treatment, 140 mL that contained 0.00709, 0.000259, and 0.074 (parts per million of N, P K, respectively) was diluted in 40 L of tap water. The nutrient doses of N-P-K corresponded to the minimum established for these crops in the region to examine if any differences could be detected in microbial and morphological traits in the use of an organic versus inorganic fertilizer. Plants were analyzed in early-stage growth at 35 days after fertilizer application.

Morphological Traits and Relative-Growth Analysis
Stem length (SL, cm), fresh stem weight (FSW), dry stem weight (DSW), foliar area (FA), fresh foliar weight (FFW), dry foliar weight (DFW), root length (RL), fresh root weight (FRW), and dry root weight (DRW) were evaluated in five M. spicata plants and five R. officinalis rosemary plants before treatment application and at the end of the experiment (35 DAS). Stem and root weights (g) were obtained using an analytical scale (Mettler Toledo, AG204); for dry weights, an oven was used with forced air circulation at 70 • C (Shel-Lab ® , FX-5, series 1000203) until constant weight. Data of initial and final dry weights were used to calculate total relative growth rate (TGR), foliar growth rate (FGR), root growth rate (RGR), and stem growth rate (SGR) in grams per day, according to Hunt [29], following Formula (1): where DW2 and DW1 are the total plant (TGR), foliar (FGR), root (RGR) and stem (SGR) dry weight (g), recorded at times t2 (time of sampling) and t1 (beginning of the experiment), respectively. The difference (t2 − t1) is expressed in days. TGR, FGR, RGR, and SGR are expressed in g −1 day −1 .

Photosynthetic Pigments
For M. spicata and R. officinalis plants under organic and inorganic treatments, we determined chlorophyll with seven plants (one leaf per plant) per treatment. M. spicata SPAD values [30,31] were recorded for 20 consecutive days after the beginning of both organic and inorganic treatments application. In R. officinalis plants, chlorophyll was evaluated two times: before any treatment application, and 20 days after both treatment applications. For R. officinalis, the chlorophyll was extracted following the acetone extraction methodology from leaf tissue, and the absorbance measure was carried out with a UV/visible spectrophotometer (model HELIOS OMEGA, Thermo Scientific, Vantaa, Finland). Chlorophyll a and b concentrations were estimated by applying the following functions [32]: Chlorophyll a (mg mL −1 ) = 11.64 (A663) − 2.16 (A645) where A663 and A645 correspond for the absorbance values at wavelengths (λ) of 663 and 645 nm, respectively.

Sampling for Bacterial-Community Characterization
To determine the influence of organic and inorganic fertilizers on rhizobial microbial communities from the plant rhizosphere, samples of the root rhizosphere were taken in the hydroponic system as follows: a water sample of 50 mL with the roots (0-0.5 cm) from three different reservoirs at three times (1, 7, and 35 DAS). The collected samples were processed immediately for: (i) total DNA isolation from water (rhizosphere) samples, and (ii) bacterial isolation from R. officinalis and M. spicata root samples with the methodology that follows below. Vermicompost was free of pathogens. the colony-forming units (CFU). One milliliter of the remaining sample was used to perform serial dilutions in saline solution 0.85% (w/v) (from 10-2 to 10-7). Lastly, 100 µL for each dilution (from 10-2 to 10-7) was plated on nutrient agar (NA) and incubated for 24 h at 30 • C. After 24 h, the CFU count was performed.
After the CFU count, bacterial colonies were isolated on the basis of their morphology. A representative colony of the five most abundant colonial morphologies was reseeded by streak dilution in a new plate of NA and incubated at 30 • C overnight. This step was repeated until a pure isolate in each case (a single bacterial morphology per isolate) was obtained. The obtained pure isolates were stored in glycerol 30% (v/v) at −80 • C until their use.

DNA Isolation
The total DNA isolation of the water samples and bacterial isolates was carried out according to the protocol with slight modifications [33]. For water samples, 25 mL was centrifuged at 5000× g for 10 min, and the supernatant was discarded. For bacterial isolates, 3 mL of liquid culture was placed in nutrient broth (NB) at 30 • C overnight and centrifuged at 5000× g for 5 min, and the supernatant was discarded. Both the pellet from water samples and the bacterial isolate pellets were processed in the same way. The resulting pellet was resuspended in 1 mL of a lysis buffer (15% sucrose, 0.3 mg/mL lysozyme, 0.05 M EDTA and 1 M Tris, pH 8) and incubated for 30 min at 37 • C. Then, 100 µL of 10% SDS (w/v), 100 µL of 5 M NaCl, and 5 µL of proteinase K (0.4 mg/mL) were added and incubated under agitation for 1 h at 50 • C. After incubation, 200 µL of phenol-chloroform-isoamyl alcohol (25:24:1) was added to 500 µL of the solution, briefly vorticed, and then centrifuged at 12,000× g for 5 min. The aqueous phase was recovered, and 200 µL of ammonium acetate (7.5 M) and 500 µL (1 volume) of absolute ethanol were added to be mixed by inversion and precipitate at 4 • C overnight to centrifuge at 4 • C at 12,000× g for 15 min. The supernatant was discarded, and the pellet was washed twice with 100 µL of ethanol 70% (v/v). The DNA was dried at room temperature, resuspended in molecular-biology-grade water, and stored at −20 • C until use.

Relative-Abundance Quantification by qPCR
The relative abundance of the bacterial population was assessed through qPCR to determine the effect of treatments. The qPCR was performed on a CFX96 Touch™ Real-Time PCR Detection System (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA) according to the instructions of the iTaq™ Universal SYBR ® Green Supermix (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA). The relative abundance of the total bacteria in the rhizosphere samples for each treatment was assessed according to the methodology described by López-Gutiérrez et al. [33] with slight modifications.

Characterization of Bacterial Communities by Ribotype Assay Analysis (16S rRNA Gene)
Ribotype assay analysis was conducted according to the Bogino et al. [34] methodology. A total DNA of 36 water samples (3 samples × 3 times × 2 treatments × 2 species of plants = 36 samples in total) and 60 bacterial isolate strains (30 isolate strains for each plant for both organic and inorganic fertilization treatments) were characterized by amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA). Bacterial genomic DNA was extracted from each isolate as mentioned previously. For 16S rRNA gene amplification, we used primers fD1 (5 -AGAGTTTGATCCTGGCTCAG-3 ) and rD1 (5 -AAGGAGGTGATCCAGCC-3 ). PCR amplification products (~1500 bp) were processed by a restriction endonuclease assay with HaeIII (Thermo Fisher Scientific), and the resulting fragments were electrophoretically separated on a 2% (w/v) agarose gel, stained with ethidium bromide to visualize them with UV radiation, and the corresponding image was photographed. Ribotype identification is directly associated with a specific restriction fragment fingerprint. The community structure dendrogram was constructed on the basis of ribotypes of the bacterial isolates with GelCompar II software. Bacterial isolate strains belonging to either unique majority ribotypes or common ribotypes were selected for further identification through 16S rRNA gene nucleotide sequence analysis with primers COM 1 (5 -CAGCAGCCGCGGTAATAC-3 ) and COM 2 (5 -CCGTCAATTCCTTTGAGTTT-3 ) with the methodology described by Stach et al. [35]. The 16S rRNA gene sequences were analyzed using the BLAST (blastn) search program (National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)).

Biofilm-Formation Assay
Biofilms are microbial communities that adhere to surfaces and are enclosed in a protective matrix; this is also the primary structure from which bacteria interact with plants and other eukaryotes. Thus, to characterize the bacterial capability of the rhizosphere (water samples) isolate strains from M. spicata and R. officinalis to form biofilms, we carried out the crystal violet (CV) staining quantitative assay of Labrie et al. [36] with slight modifications. CV staining absorbance was measured at 590 nm using a spectrophotometer (Multiskan Spectrum, Thermo Scientific, Wilmington, DE, USA).

Statistical Analysis
Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analysis of variance (ANOVA and MANOVA) for one-way classification, and the nutrition source was the study factor. For chlorophyll content, multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) and significant differences between means for each recorded date were determined by two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Least significant differences (LSD) in Tukey's HSD test (p = 0.05) were estimated for one-way ANOVA. For all cases, significant differences between means were considered to be significant at p < 0.05. All statistical analyses were performed with Statistica software program v10.0 and GraphPad Prism version 6.0 (GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA).  (Table 2). There was no difference between the vermicompost leachate treatment and the inorganic treatment for relative growth rates of leaves (FGR), stems (RGS), total growth rate (TGR), and roots (RGR), which was lower for vermicompost leachate than inorganic fertilizer was (Table 3). Chlorophyll a and b, and total content did not show any differences between plants with vermicompost leachate or inorganic treatment (Table 4 and Figure 1).

CFU Quantification and Relative Abundance of Bacterial Communities
The relative abundance of total bacterial communities due to the effect of treatments was assessed by CFU estimation and by a qPCR-based assay. For both M. spicata and R.

R. officinalis
For all morphological traits, there were no differences between the vermicompost leachate and inorganic treatments (Tables 2 and 3) except for rosemary under treatment with leachate in RGR, which showed lower growth (Table 3). Organic treatment did not affect chlorophyll a and b, and total content did not undergo alterations in either organic or inorganic treatment, and the only variable that exerted an effect was the time (date) of chlorophyll sampling (Table 4).

CFU Quantification and Relative Abundance of Bacterial Communities
The relative abundance of total bacterial communities due to the effect of treatments was assessed by CFU estimation and by a qPCR-based assay. For both M. spicata and R. officinalis, no differences were determined between the vermicompost leachate and inorganic treatments regarding the abundance of bacterial populations; however, an increase in relative abundance in time was more evident for the vermicompost leachate ( Figure 2).
Bacterial community structure kinetics between both vermicompost leachate and inorganic treatments was analyzed. Thirty-six total DNA water samples were analyzed by amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA). As this test showed for M. spicata and R. officinalis, bacterial community structures underwent changes through time without a significant effect between treatments (Figure 3a,b). Thus, these results highlight the feasibility of replacing inorganic fertilizer with the vermicompost leachate without significant impact on the bacterial abundance or bacterial community structures of M. spicata and R. officinalis in hydroponic systems.
inorganic treatments was analyzed. Thirty-six total DNA water samples were analyzed by amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA). As this test showed for M. spicata and R. officinalis, bacterial community structures underwent changes through time without a significant effect between treatments (Figure 3a,b). Thus, these results highlight the feasibility of replacing inorganic fertilizer with the vermicompost leachate without significant impact on the bacterial abundance or bacterial community structures of M. spicata and R. officinalis in hydroponic systems.

Composition and Diversity of Bacterial Communities
A total of 60 bacterial isolate strains (30 isolate strains for each plant for both vermicompost leachate and inorganic fertilization treatments) were characterized by ARDRA. From ARDRA, 15 ribotypes were identified in M. spicata and R. officinalis

Composition and Diversity of Bacterial Communities
A total of 60 bacterial isolate strains (30 isolate strains for each plant for both vermicompost leachate and inorganic fertilization treatments) were characterized by ARDRA. From ARDRA, 15 ribotypes were identified in M. spicata and R. officinalis according to the yielded fingerprint after the restriction assay with the HaeIII restriction enzyme (Table 5). In the case of R. officinalis, eight different ribotypes were identified (Figure 4). Of these eight ribotypes, seven were present in inorganic treatment, and four in the vermicompost leachate. Of the ribotypes present in the inorganic treatment, four were exclusively present in this treatment, while only one ribotype was exclusive of the vermicompost leachate. In the case of M. spicata, there were also eight different ribotypes for both the vermicompost leachate and the inorganic treatment. For the inorganic treatment, there were five ribotypes, and none was exclusive to this treatment. For the vermicompost leachate treatment, eight ribotypes were present, and three ribotypes were exclusive of this treatment. However, it was not possible to characterize the ribotype to which three bacterial isolates from M. spicata belonged (two from inorganic treatment and one from organic treatment).
Representative bacterial strains were identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Bacterial isolate strains were selected according to ribotype ARDRA profiles (Table 6). Most bacterial isolate strains belonged to the Firmicutes phylum, which was mainly composed of the Bacilli class, the Bacillaceae family, and the Bacillus genus. Bacterial isolate strains belonging to Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria classes from the Proteobacteria phylum were found (Table 6).     Ribotypes found in rosemary bacterial isolate strains belonged to Firmicutes (60%), mainly composed of the Bacillus genus. Comparing the vermicompost leachate and inorganic treatments, we determined that the Firmicutes phylum was the most abundant between treatments, and the Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria classes, and Gammaproteobacteria showed greater abundance in inorganic treatment than in the vermicompost leachate treatment ( Figure 4, Table 6). The ribotypes found in M. spicata bacterial isolate strains belonged to Firmicutes (80% and were mainly composed of the Bacillus genus. Interestingly, 10% of the bacterial isolate strains were unclassified. Comparing the vermicompost leachate and inorganic treatments, the most abundant phylum was Firmicutes, followed by the Gammaproteobacteria class (Tables 5 and 6). For the vermicompost leachate, the Betaproteobacteria class showed greater abundance in the vermicompost leachate treatment than in inorganic treatment (Tables 5 and 6). Therefore, the Firmicutes phylum was the most abundant in both R. officinalis and M. spicata plants, and in both the vermicompost leachate and the inorganic treatment.

Biofilm-Forming Ability of Bacterial Communities
All bacterial isolate strains from R. officinalis (30 isolates) and M. spicata (30 isolates) were assessed for adhesion and biofilm-establishment capability with a CV assay. The CV assay showed that all bacterial isolates were able to adhere to the surface and establish biofilms ( Figure 5). Differences were found in biofilm formation that were categorized according to the capability to retain CV measured by the OD at 595 nm (CV-OD595) [28], for all bacterial isolate strains as follows: weak (<0.6), moderate (0.6-1.2), and strong (>1.2). R. officinalis bacterial isolate strains with the vermicompost leachate treatment showed that 3 bacterial isolates formed a moderate biofilm, 2 a strong biofilm, and the remaining 10 a weak biofilm. For the bacterial isolate strains from the inorganic treatment, 4 bacterial isolates formed a moderate biofilm, 1 a strong biofilm, and the remaining 10 a weak biofilm. The M. spicata bacterial isolate strains with the vermicompost leachate treatment showed that 1 bacterial isolate formed a strong biofilm, 2 a moderate biofilm, and the remaining 12 formed a weak biofilm. For the inorganic treatment, 2 bacterial isolates were able to form a strong biofilm, 1 a moderate biofilm, and the remaining 12 a weak biofilm. Altogether, for the R. officinalis and M. spicata plants and both the vermicompost leachate and the inorganic treatment, most bacterial isolates were able to form weak biofilms in the conditions assessed in this study.

Biofilm-Forming Ability of Bacterial Communities
All bacterial isolate strains from R. officinalis (30 isolates) and M. spicata (30 isolates) were assessed for adhesion and biofilm-establishment capability with a CV assay. The CV assay showed that all bacterial isolates were able to adhere to the surface and establish biofilms ( Figure 5). Differences were found in biofilm formation that were categorized according to the capability to retain CV measured by the OD at 595 nm (CV-OD595) [28], for all bacterial isolate strains as follows: weak (<0.6), moderate (0.6-1.2), and strong (>1.2). R. officinalis bacterial isolate strains with the vermicompost leachate treatment showed that 3 bacterial isolates formed a moderate biofilm, 2 a strong biofilm, and the remaining 10 a weak biofilm. For the bacterial isolate strains from the inorganic treatment, 4 bacterial isolates formed a moderate biofilm, 1 a strong biofilm, and the remaining 10 a weak biofilm. The M. spicata bacterial isolate strains with the vermicompost leachate treatment showed that 1 bacterial isolate formed a strong biofilm, 2 a moderate biofilm, and the remaining 12 formed a weak biofilm. For the inorganic treatment, 2 bacterial isolates were able to form a strong biofilm, 1 a moderate biofilm, and the remaining 12 a weak biofilm. Altogether, for the R. officinalis and M. spicata plants and both the vermicompost leachate and the inorganic treatment, most bacterial isolates were able to form weak biofilms in the conditions assessed in this study.

Discussion
The vermicompost leachate treatment for both M. spicata (mint) and R. officinalis (rosemary) plants did not affect their growth; even for M. spicata plants, we were able to determine a growth increase for several morphometric parameters. Moreover, for R. officinalis plant growth, for all morphometric parameters, there were only differences for root growth, which was lower for vermicompost than for inorganic leachate; similar

Discussion
The vermicompost leachate treatment for both M. spicata (mint) and R. officinalis (rosemary) plants did not affect their growth; even for M. spicata plants, we were able to determine a growth increase for several morphometric parameters. Moreover, for R. officinalis plant growth, for all morphometric parameters, there were only differences for root growth, which was lower for vermicompost than for inorganic leachate; similar results were found by Peng et al. [37]. This is important since the aim of healthy food production is avoiding the application of inorganic fertilizer [25,[38][39][40][41]. Furthermore, vermicompost leachate contains a high amount of plant hormones, such as auxins, gibberellins, and cytokinins from microbial origin, giving rise to plant-growth enhancement, and acting as a liquid fertilizer [15,[42][43][44][45]. Emperor and Kumar [45] determined that organic matter processed in the earthworm gut and then excreted as vermicast undergoes an increased level of microbial population, microbial respiration, microbial enzyme activity, and N, P, and K enrichment, bacterial exopolysaccharide production, lignocellulolytic activity establishment, nitrifying, and nitrogen-fixing microorganism proliferation. The above allow for us to conclude that the use of vermicompost to replace inorganic fertilizers is a viable option under the use of hydroponic systems [43,[46][47][48][49].
The bacterial communities' relative abundance showed no differences between the vermicompost leachate and inorganic treatments for both R. officinalis and M. spicata plants, showing time-related differences, as expected, in accordance with previous works, where the analyzed bacterial communities underwent the same behavior [50,51]. The bacterialcommunity structure for the R. officinalis and M. spicata plants and for both treatment types were mainly composed by the Firmicutes phylum, followed by the Proteobacteria phylum, which was represented by the Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria classes; we were also able to determine the presence of beneficial bacteria from the Bacillus (Firmicutes phylum) and Pseudomonas (Proteobacteria phylum) genera. Those bacteria are designated as beneficial or plant-growth-promoting (PGPB), and the characterization of the bacterial-community structures of the rhizosphere for other plant members (Thymus vulgaris, T. citriodorus, T. zygis, Santolina chamaecyparissus, Lavandula dentata, and Salvia miltiorrhiza) of the Lamiaceae family showed that Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Gemmatimonadetes were among the most abundant bacterial phyla [5,[52][53][54][55][56].
Lastly, the capability to establish biofilms was assessed for all 60 bacterial isolate strains from the M. spicata and R. officinalis plants and both treatments, with no differences highlighting the essential role of biofilm development in bacterial survival and physiology [36]. We determined that most of the isolates (66.67% in R. officinalis and 80% in M. spicata) had weak capacity (CV-OD595) to form a biofilm; a smaller proportion were able to produce a strong biofilm for both M plants and both treatments. In an aqueous environment, such as a hydroponic system, biofilm establishment follows other mechanisms that are not yet characterized. Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies and working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible. Future research directions may also be highlighted.

Conclusions
In this study, we showed that the substitution of inorganic fertilizer by vermicompost leachate in a hydroponic system allows for us to maintain or increase the production of two crop plants with agricultural importance (M. spicata (mint), and R. officinalis (rosemary)). Furthermore, we determined that this fertilizer substitution modifies neither the bacterial communities for both plants nor their ability to form biofilms. Through time, the vermicompost leachate tendency showed an increase in relative abundance, which is important to consider for future studies. Therefore, we propose the use of vermicompost leachate fertilizer as a feasible replacement for inorganic fertilizer in hydroponic systems to achieve sustainable and ecofriendly agricultural production, in agreement with our results and recent research conducted on open-field cultures, to face the challenge of a growing population and pollution derived from the use of inorganic fertilizers.