Maize-soybean intercropping improved maize growth traits by increasing soil nutrients and reducing plant pathogen abundance

Meiyu Liu; Huicheng Zhao

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1290825

Maize-soybean intercropping improved maize growth traits by increasing soil nutrients and reducing plant pathogen abundance

Front Microbiol. 2023 Nov 30:14:1290825. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1290825. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Meiyu Liu^{1

2}, Huicheng Zhao¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Agricultural Water Resources, Center for Agricultural Resources Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shijiazhuang, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Maize (Zea mays L.)-soybean (Glycine max L.) intercropping has been widely utilized in agricultural production due to its effectiveness in improving crop yield and nutrient use efficiency. However, the responses of maize rhizosphere microbial communities and the plant pathogen relative abundance to maize growth traits in maize-soybean intercropping systems with different chemical nitrogen fertilizer application rates remain unclear.

Methods: In this study, a field experiment was conducted, and the bacterial and fungal communities of maize rhizosphere soils in maize-soybean intercropping systems treated with different N fertilization rates were investigated using Illumina NovaSeq sequencing. Maize growth traits, soil physicochemical properties and soil enzyme activities were also examined.

Results and discussion: We found that intercropping and N fertilizer treatments strongly influenced soil microbial diversity, structure and function. The PLSPM (partial least squares path modeling) confirmed that soil nutrients directly positively affected maize biomass and that intercropping practices indirectly positively affected maize biomass via soil nutrients, especially NH₄⁺-N. Intercropping agronomic approaches also improved maize growth traits by reducing the plant pathogen abundance, and the relative abundance of the plant pathogen Trichothecium roseum significantly decreased with intercropping treatments compared to monocropping treatments. These results confirmed the benefits of maize-soybean intercropping treatments for agricultural production.

Keywords: maize growth traits; maize-soybean intercropping; microbial community; microbial function; rhizosphere.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U21A2029).