Leaf litter accumulation in tea soil contributes to soil sickness due to increased soil acidification and the release of allelochemicals. Microbe-assisted vermitechnology-based decomposition of potentially hazardous metal (PHM) containing tea leaf litter (TLL) biomass offers an environmentally friendly alternative compared to synthetic fertilizer-based products. This research investigated the efficacy of microbe-assisted TLL vermicompost as an organic amendment for okra cultivation, focusing on biochemical traits, microbial activity, and bioavailability of other micro and macronutrients of soil. The findings suggested that treatment T5 exhibited a significant increase in soil microbial activity, higher yield, enhanced biochemical traits, and negligible PHM bioavailability post-harvest, compared to chemical fertilizer-treated soil (T9). At the post-harvest stage, the bioavailable PHM content was found to be minimal in treatment T5 (DTPACr = 2. 91 ± 0. 82; DTPANi = 2. 73 ± 0. 39; DTPAPb = 2. 03 ± 0. 12). The FIAM-HQ value was below 0. 5 for every treatment, indicating that okra grown on TLL vermicompost poses a negligible health hazard associated with PHM. Fuzzy-TOPSIS ranked T5 highest among the treatments in terms of agronomic performance. Sobol sensitivity analysis successfully predicted the influence of biochemical traits on the agronomical parameters of okra. Based on a pot trial experiment, the preliminary findings indicated that application of microbe-assisted TLL vermicompost has successfully increased the yield by 1. 22-fold with respect to chemical fertilizer-treated soil. Overall, this study investigates the efficacy of microbe-assisted TLL vermicompost in enhancing okra yield, thereby contributing to sustainable agricultural development and environmentally friendly practices.
Basu et al. (Sat,) studied this question.