Assessment of inceptisols soil quality following long-term cropping in a calcareous environment

Rhizosphere Bacterial Community Response to Continuous Cropping of Tibetan Barley

Long-term continuous cropping influences the nutrient of soil and microbiome of the rhizosphere, resulting in the yield decrease of crops. Tibetan barley is a dominant cereal crop cultivated at high altitudes in Tibet. Its growth and yield are negatively affected by continuous cropping; however, the response of the rhizosphere microbial community to continuous cropping remains poorly understood. To address this question, we investigated the bacterial community structure and conducted predictive functional profiling on rhizosphere soil from Tibetan barley monocropped for 2–6 years. The results revealed that long-term continuous cropping markedly decreased total nitrogen and available nitrogen in rhizosphere soil. Illumina high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes indicated that the bacterial community was altered by continuous cropping; operational taxonomic units (OTUs), Shannon index, and Faith Phylogenetic Diversity decreased with increasing monocropping duration. Relative abundances of family Pseudomonadaceae, Cytophagaceae, and Nocardioidaceae were significantly increased, while those of Chitinophagaceae and Sphingomonadaceae were significantly decreased (all p < 0.05). Besides, continuous cropping significantly increased the abundance of bacteria associated with chemoheterotrophy, aromatic compound degradation, and nitrate reduction (p < 0.05). Generalized boosted regression model analysis indicated that total nitrogen was the most important contributor to the bacterial community diversity, indicating their roles in shaping the rhizosphere bacterial community during continuous cropping. Overall, continuous cropping had a significant impact on the structure of bacterial communities in rhizosphere soil of Tibetan barley, and these results will improve our understanding of soil bacterial community regulation and soil health maintenance in Tibetan barley farm systems.

Evaluation of fertigation management impacts of surface drip irrigation on reducing nitrate leaching using numerical modeling

The objective of this study was to investigate the impacts of fertigation strategies on nitrate leaching and its uptake into maize plants. Field experimental data were employed to calibrate a numerical model (HYDRUS 2D/3D) for a surface drip irrigation system in a sandy clay loam soil. The calibrated model was used to simulate nitrate plant uptake and its leaching in different fertigation scenarios based on various fertigation durations and different start times of fertigation. Finally, nitrogen plant uptake was compared with maize N requirement during growth stages in two fertigation frequency scenarios. These simulations were also performed in sandy loam soil. The results show that, if fertigation is done at the end of irrigation, nitrate leaching in shorter fertigation duration will be less than the leaching in longer fertigation duration. However, in the case of fertigation at the beginning of irrigation, the nitrate leaching is higher if the fertigation duration is short, and vice versa. Furthermore, reducing the number of fertigation events in the sandy clay loam soil increases the nitrate plant uptake. However, in the sandy loam soil, a lesser number of fertigation events reduce nitrate uptake.

The impacts of long-term intensive agriculture on the Vertisol properties in a calcareous region

Morphological, physicochemical, and mineralogical properties of Vertisols (Chromic Calcixererts, Typic Haploxererts, and Typic Calcixererts) influenced under farming practices and adjoining uncultivated soils were investigated in order to contribute to the understanding of changes derived by intensive cultivation (over five decades). The study revealed that A-horizon thickness enhanced from 20 cm in the uncultivated soil to 30 cm in the cultivated soil for Typic Haploxererts and Typic Calcixererts. Under cropping, calcium carbonate contents decreased (a drop of 10 to 53%) reflecting accelerated leaching and/or erosion by cultivation. For most of the studied soils, a pronounced depletion was recorded at values of soil organic carbon (23-64%), soluble cations (4-96%), and exchangeable cations (9-42%) after cropping. A considerable positive change in soil quality was observed with cultivation as recorded by a declining trend in soil electrical conductivity (a drop of 12 to 17%) and exchangeable sodium percentage (a drop of 9 to 12%). On average, the concentration of free and crystalline Fe oxides progressively increased for Chromic Calcixererts and Typic Calcixererts following intensive cultivation. Cropping operations considerably promoted the alteration of illite and chlorite minerals into expandable minerals linked with changes in soil physicochemical properties mainly the increase in cation exchange capacity. Land productivity index (LPI), evaluated based on parametric approach, suggested that Chromic Calcixererts and Typic Haploxererts highlighted a decreasing trend in LPI values (a drop of 5 to 7%) while Typic Calcixererts manifested an increasing pattern in the index (a rise of 13%) with long-term intensive cropping.