Abstract
Soil bacteria and fungi are integral parts of healthy ecosystem functioning in production agriculture. The effects of fungal abundance and diversity on crop productivity is poorly understood. We sampled 10 corn farms at the V10 growth stage across southwestern Ontario, Canada, using aerial infrared imaging to identify zones of low and high productive corn plants. Roots and soils were sampled from low and high yield zones and soil physical and chemical properties were measured in conjunction with assessment of the root mycobiome communities using Illumina MiSeq sequencing of 4 rRNA amplicons. Higher crop yields were associated with sites having greater fungal phylogenetic diversity and Fisher's α diversity. Indicator species associated with high and low yield sites within a farm could be identified but there were no shared fungal indicators of productivity differences across farms. Communities largely varied across locations despite crop genetics, demonstrating a major influence of soil texture and chemistry in shaping the mycobiome in a site-specific manner. Across all 4 primers, roots from high-yielding sites shared 35 major OTUs including Penicillium spp., Trichoderma, Chalara fungorum, and Gibellulopsis. Low-yielding sites shared 31 OTUs including Fusarium spp., Pythium, Setophoma terrestris, and Neonectria. Soil physical and chemical parameters that contributed to broad scale differences in yield and mycobiome diversity included: %clay, %sand, %phosphorus saturation, cation exchange capacity, aluminum, pH, iron, potassium, %moisture, organic matter, and chlorine. The results show the importance of physicochemical balance in shaping the relationship between root mycobiome and plant productivity.
Highlights
Sustainable agricultural production can be achieved through the development and maintenance of high soil quality
There were slightly larger between site differences in soil that were seen along PC1 (29.4% explained variance), whereas withinsite factors (Clay, sand, K, %P saturation, CEC) separated most high/low yield groups along PC2 (21.6% explained variance), and there was slight within-farm-yield separation seen in PC3 (17.2% explained variance)
The farms clustered into five groups: group 1 containing farms 7, 9, and 10 had high clay, CEC, and K influencing low yield sites; group 2 containing farms 1 and 8 had high %P saturation and sand influencing high yield sites; group 3 containing farms 3, 5, and 6 had low CEC and high %P saturation influencing high yield sites; group 4 containing the outlier farm 4 was characterized by low soil Al and high moisture and OM, and group 5 containing farm 2 that did not have differences in final yield measurements (186 vs. 169 bu/ac), resulting in no site separation
Summary
Sustainable agricultural production can be achieved through the development and maintenance of high soil quality. Microbial diversity can directly influence plant productivity by influencing plant growth and development, plant competition, Corn Root Mycobiome and Productivity nutrient and water uptake (Baliyarsingh et al, 2017), and indirectly through contributions to nutrient turnover and soil aggregation (Wilpiszeski et al, 2019). Many of our current agricultural techniques and production practices result in the physicochemical and biological depletion of the soil environment due to intensive and extractive crop production, resulting in increased soil degradation including losses of nutrients and soil organic matter (Dregne, 2002; Rashid et al, 2016). Bacteria and fungi grow in the rhizosphere and rhizoplane, with some moving systemically to colonize aboveground plant parts and develop symbiotic relationships with host plants by improving beneficial plant functional traits (Hardoim et al, 2015). Bacteria and fungi grow in the rhizosphere and rhizoplane, with some moving systemically to colonize aboveground plant parts and develop symbiotic relationships with host plants by improving beneficial plant functional traits (Hardoim et al, 2015). Petrini (1986) reviewed 100 years of research and suggested that almost all the plants in natural ecosystems have symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi and/or fungal endophytes
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