Abstract
Soil properties are one of the major factors determining the growth of vegetation. These properties drive the selection of the dominant bacterial community profiles, which eventually determines the soil quality and fertility. The abundance of preferential bacterial community assists in better productivity of a particular type of vegetation. The increasing focus on the health and well-being of the human population has resulted in a shift in paradigm to concentrate on the cultivation of medicinal plants such as Wild-simulated ginseng (WSG). These plant species take a long time for their growth and are generally cultivated in the mountainous forest trenches of Far East countries like South Korea. This study was conducted to decipher the bacterial community profiles and their correlation with soil chemical properties, which would give a broader idea about the optimum growing conditions of such an important medicinal plant. The important edaphic factor determined in this study was the soil pH, which was recorded to be acidic in all the studied cultivation sites. In agreement with the edaphic factor, the relative abundance of Acidobacteria was found to be highest as this phylum prefers to grow in acidic soils. Moreover, the total organic matter, total nitrogen and cation exchange capacity were found to be significantly correlated with the bacterial community. Hence, these results will help to identify the suitable cultivation sites for WSG and increase the productivity of these medicinal plants.
Highlights
Wild-simulated ginseng (WSG) belongs to the Araliaceae family, and it is known as Panax ginseng C.A
The average tree height (TH) was maximum in the F cultivation site (26.8 m), and the average diameter of breast heightheight (DBH) was maximum in the A cultivation site (36.1 cm)
The soil pH of all cultivation sites has been recorded as acidic soil, and the I cultivation site showed the significantly lowest value compared to other cultivation sites
Summary
Wild-simulated ginseng (WSG) belongs to the Araliaceae family, and it is known as Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer [1]. It is mostly grown through artificially sowing the seeds or transplanting of seedlings in a mountainous area by the Korean Forest Service (KFS) [2]. In. Korea, the WSG is defined as a kind of ginseng produced without the use of any artificial facilities, and the West Virginia legislature in the United States defined it as the ginseng grown in theforest without the use of any weed, disease or pest control agents. Soil microbes present in the rhizosphere have symbiotic relations with plants, and they can contribute to plant growth through decomposition of organic matter, nutrient (carbon, nitrogen and inorganic elements) cycling, removal of pollutants and supplying of nutrients to plants, and they play an important role in determining soil quality and productivity [4,5]. The recent develop in culture-independent methods has made it convenient to study microbial diversity and predict key functional traits of soil microbiota [6]
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