Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1389156
This article is part of the Research Topic Tobacco Disease and Biological Control View all 11 articles

Effects of the tobacco-maize relay intercropping pattern on soil nutrients and soil microbial diversity

Provisionally accepted
Chengren Ouyang Chengren Ouyang 1,2*Kang Yang Kang Yang 2*Shuhui Zi Shuhui Zi 2*
  • 1 Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China
  • 2 College of Tobacco Science, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The imbalanced soil nutrient status caused by the long-term monoculture of flue-cured tobacco are a concern. The tobacco–maize relay intercropping, widely used in Yunnan, may improve soil nutrients by enhancing the soil microbial community, but this remains unexplored. This study employed high-throughput sequencing technology to examine soil microbial diversity under tobacco monoculture and tobacco–maize relay intercropping, using the varieties Hongda and K326, respectively. The results indicated that tobacco–maize relay intercropping significantly enhanced root biomass compared to tobacco monoculture, with no significant effect on aboveground biomass. This intercropping treatment also significantly improved soil physicochemical properties, including soil pH, total phosphorus, available phosphorus, and available potassium, which was associated with an increase in the soil microbial community (as indicated by the Chao1 and Shannon indices). Specifically, the abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, Nitrospira, and Acidobacteria increased, but the abundance of Chloroflexi decreased. Therefore, these findings suggest that tobacco-maize relay intercropping can improve soil physicochemical properties and enhance soil nutrient supply.

    Keywords: Relay intercropping, Soil nutrients, Soil microbial diversity, Tobacco, Maize

    Received: 21 Feb 2024; Accepted: 10 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ouyang, Yang and Zi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Chengren Ouyang, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China
    Kang Yang, College of Tobacco Science, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China
    Shuhui Zi, College of Tobacco Science, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.