Effects of increasing drip irrigation at different maize growth stages on soil microorganisms

Lei Wang; Xiaojuan Wang; Tianle Wang

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2024.1343302

Effects of increasing drip irrigation at different maize growth stages on soil microorganisms

Front Microbiol. 2024 Jan 31:15:1343302. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1343302. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Lei Wang^{1

2}, Xiaojuan Wang^{1

2

3

4

5}, Tianle Wang²

Affiliations

¹ Shanxi Institute of Organic Dryland Farming, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.
² College of Agriculture, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Integrative Sustainable Dryland Agriculture (In Preparation), Shanxi Agricultural University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Sustainable Dryland Agriculture (Co-construction by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and Shanxi Province), Shanxi Agricultural University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.
⁵ Shanxi Province Key Laboratory of Sustainable Dryland Agriculture, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.

Abstract

Introduction: To investigate the effects of different drip irrigation periods on soil microbial communities and functions.

Methods: Increasing drip irrigation amount at the seedling (S), jointing (J), bell (B), tasseling (T) and grain filling (G) stages of maize were studied using no increase in irrigation amount as control (CK). Principal component analysis was conducted to comprehensively evaluate soil microbial quality following the different drip irrigation treatments. In addition, the characteristics of the community structure and the potential functional composition of soil bacteria and fungi were comparatively analyzed by combining amplicon sequencing and functional prediction methods.

Results: The results indicated that MBNT15 was the most important genus for the classification of soil bacterial samples, Saitozyma was the most important genus for the classification of soil fungal samples, and fungi were more important than bacteria for the classification of soil microbial samples. Compared with fungal communities, bacterial communities exhibited high levels of functional diversity. The proportion of metabolism was the highest in the prediction of bacterial primary functions, and carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism were important functions in the prediction of bacterial secondary functions. BugBase phenotype prediction results showed that soil bacteria under B treatment had a higher number of aerobic bacteria and greater resistance to disease and stress. The J treatment had the highest number of bacteria with biofilm forms, and the J, S, and G treatments contained more potentially pathogenic bacteria but fewer stress-tolerant bacteria compared with the CK treatment. The number of Saprotroph was the largest and the number of Symbiotroph was the least. The relative abundances of Saprotroph, Pathotroph and Symbiotroph were 68.60%~74.33%, 15.76%~20.60% and 9.16%~11.13%, respectively.

Discussion: The findings provide a reference for conserving water resources, improving maize yield, and predicting soil microbial metabolic potential and function by reflecting the richness of the soil microbial community structure in maize fields.

Keywords: PCA analysis; community structure; drip irrigation; gene functional prediction; maize; soil bacteria; soil fungus.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant number 2021YFD1901101-4-4); Science and Technology Major Project of Shanxi Province, China (Grant number 202101140601026-4-4); State Key Laboratory of Sustainable Dryland Agriculture, Shanxi Agricultural University (Grant number 202105D121008-1-7); the Youth Top-Notch Talent Support Program of Shanxi province (Grant number HNZXBJ001).