Oxytetracycline (OTC) residues have been found in soil and water, and they may pose potential risks to agricultural ecological environments.  One of the most impactful ways for OTC to enter the soil and water environments is through excrement used as organic fertilizer.  Therefore, it is important to remove OTC during manure composting and to understand the transformation of the organic materials during composting in the presence of OTC.  In the present paper, chicken manure and wheat sawdust spiked with OTC were composted under different initial moisture contents (MC) to evaluate the degradation of OTC and  changes of organic matter during the composting process.  The MC has a significant effect on OTC degradation during composting.  A higher MC of 65% was more conducive to OTC degradation (77.4%) and compost maturity compared to the lower MC.  However, the higher MC of 65% could increase the ammonia volatilization by promoting nitrification compared to the lower MC.  An increase in the initial MC could improve the composting temperature.  NMR results illustrated that the presence of OTC could affect the internal transformation of aliphatics, and OTC inhibited compost humification.  Thus, an initial MC of 55–65% can alleviate the impacts of OTC on humification during manure composting.

Monilinia fructicola has been widely reported as the causal agent of brown rot disease on many Rosaceae family fruits worldwide.  It has been reported on stone fruits, e.g., peach, plum, cherry, apricot and mume; as well as pome fruits, e.g., apple, pear and hawthorn.  Loquat is a member of the Eriobotrya genus in subfamily Maloideae along with apple, pear and hawthorn.  So far, loquat has not been reported as the host of any Monilia species.  In June 2019, brown rot symptoms were observed on loquat fruits in an orchard in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.  Thirty single spore isolates were obtained and identified as M. fructicola based on morphological characteristics and molecular analysis.  This is the first report of loquat brown rot disease caused by Monilia species in the world.  Furthermore, upon artificial inoculation, all three Monilia species from peach in China, i.e., M. fructicola, M. mumecola and M. yunnanensis, could cause typical brown rot disease on loquat fruits.  At the same time, M. fructicola isolates from loquat showed virulence similar to those isolates from peach when the pathogenicity test was conducted on peach fruits.  These results suggested that loquat could be infected by other Monilia species and that isolates from loquat also have potential to damage other Rosaceae family fruits in practice.