Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum is an important manifestation of continuous cropping barrier, which causes the quality and yield of watermelon to decline. In early stage of this study, the organic fertilizer fermented by Bama pig manure applied in soil was proved to significantly inhibit the occurrence of disease by improving the structure of soil microbial community. However, the mechanism was not clear. The high-throughput sequencing technology, combined with network and PICRUSt2 function analysis was used to investigate it. MiSeq sequencing showed that the bacterial community of organic fertilizer treated soil was composed of 34 phyla and 768 genera, the number of genera was higher than that of sterile water treated soil. Fertilization significantly increased the diversity and changed the composition of bacterial community based on alpha, beta diversity, and ANOSIM/Adonis analysis. LEfSe species difference and network analysis showed that fertilization improved the relative abundance of bacteria with biological control or plant growth promotion characteristics in soil, such as Sphingomonas, Halobacillus, Nocardioides, and enhanced the interaction between rhizosphere bacteria, made the network structure more complex. PICRUSt2 also revealed fertilization promoted the bacterial function, such as metabolism and genetic information processing. These results showed that the pig manure organic fertilizer might reduce the occurrence of Fusarium wilt by regulating bacterial community, interaction, and functional metabolism in watermelon rhizosphere soil.
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