Abstract
BackgroundThe soil quality and health of the tea plantations are dependent on agriculture management practices, and long-term chemical fertilizer use is implicated in soil decline. Hence, several sustainable practices are used to improve and maintain the soil quality. Here, in this study, changes in soil properties, enzymatic activity, and dysbiosis in bacterial community composition were compared using three agricultural management practices, namely conventional (CA), sustainable (SA), and transformational agriculture (TA) in the tea plantation during 2016 and 2017 period. Soil samples at two-months intervals were collected and analyzed.ResultsThe results of the enzyme activities revealed that acid phosphatase, arylsulfatase, β-glucosidase, and urease activities differed considerably among the soils representing the three management practices. Combining the redundancy and multiple regression analysis, the change in the arylsulfatase activity was explained by soil pH as a significant predictor in the SA soils. The soil bacterial community was predominated by the phyla Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, and Bacteroidetes in the soil throughout the sampling period. Higher Alpha diversity scores indicated increased bacterial abundance and diversity in the SA soils. A significant relationship between bacterial richness indices (SOBS, Chao and ACE) and soil pH, K and, P was observed in the SA soils. The diversity indices namely Shannon and Simpson also showed variations, suggesting the shift in the diversity of less abundant and more common species. Furthermore, the agricultural management practices, soil pH fluctuation, and the extractable elements had a greater influence on bacterial structure than that of temporal change.ConclusionsBased on the cross-over analysis of the bacterial composition, enzymatic activity, and soil properties, the relationship between bacterial composition and biologically-driven ecological processes can be identified as indicators of sustainability for the tea plantation.
Highlights
The soil quality and health of the tea plantations are dependent on agriculture management practices, and long-term chemical fertilizer use is implicated in soil decline
Our result indicated that soil pH was positively correlated with soil P and K contents and negatively correlated with soil electrical conductivity (EC) (Fig. 3)
The soil enzymes and bacterial composition are assumed to be indicators of soil quality (Acosta-Martinez et al 2018; Arafat et al 2017; Jeanbille et al 2016), and the results of this study provide valuable insights into the relationship among soil physic-chemical properties, enzymatic activity, and bacterial community derived from the field data that included soil samples from three different agricultural management practices over the temporal scale
Summary
The soil quality and health of the tea plantations are dependent on agriculture management practices, and long-term chemical fertilizer use is implicated in soil decline. The microbial community structure is affected by environmental factors such as pH, temperature, moisture, and nutrient content (Arcand et al 2017; Lauber et al 2009; Wang et al 2014). In agricultural soils, these changes are dependent on the agricultural management practices, including tillage, crop rotation, fertilization, and pesticide application. Long-term chemical fertilizer use in conventional agriculture systems gives rise to substantial adverse effects on soil quality causing the reduction in the soil biological activities, loss of soil organic matter, and deterioration of the soil structure and nutrient recycling (Bronick and Lal 2005; Zhao et al 2016). Soil microbial profile significantly differs between organic and conventional farming systems, and organic farming supports a more stable and uniform community structure in comparison to conventional farming (Li et al 2012; Wang et al 2016)
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