Fungal Inhibition of Agricultural Soil Pathogen Stimulated by Nitrogen-Reducing Fertilization

Abstract

Plant health is the fundamental of agricultural production, which is threatened by plant pathogens severely. The previous studies exhibited the effects of different pathogen control strategies (physical, chemical, and microbial methods), which resulted from bringing in exogenous additives, on microbial community structures and functions. Nevertheless, few studies focused on the potential inhibitory abilities of native microbial community in the soil, which could be activated or enhanced by different fertilization strategies. In this study, three plant diseases (TMV, TBS, and TBW) of tobacco, fungal community of tobacco rhizosphere soil, and the correlation between them were researched. The results showed that nitrogen-reducing fertilization strategies could significantly decrease the occurrence rate and the disease index of three tobacco diseases. The results of bioinformatics analyses revealed that the fungal communities of different treatments could differentiate the nitrogen-reducing fertilization group and the control group (CK). Furthermore, key genera which were responsible for the variation of fungal community were explored by LEfSe analysis. For instance, Tausonia and Trichocladium increased, while Naganishia and Fusicolla decreased under nitrogen-reducing fertilization conditions. Additionally, the correlation between tobacco diseases and key genera was verified using the Mantel test. Moreover, the causal relationship between key genera and tobacco diseases was deeply explored by PLS–PM analysis. These findings provide a theoretical basis for a nitrogen-reducing fertilization strategy against tobacco diseases without exogenous additives and make contributions to revealing the microbial mechanism of native-valued fungal key taxa against tobacco diseases, which could be stimulated by agricultural fertilization management.

The succession of rhizosphere microbial community in the continuous cropping soil of tobacco

“…Environmental factor correlation analysis at the genus level showed that Tausonia and Solicocozyma under the Basidiomycota phylum were significantly positively correlated with continuous cropping years, consistent with previous studies on continuous cropping of sugar beet (Cui et al, 2022). Previous studies have shown that under the reduced nitrogen fertilizer environment of tobacco, the abundance of Tausonia significantly increased (Shen et al, 2022). Tausonia may participate in regulating tobacco sugar content and may also play a role in plant tolerance to low temperature and fermentation processes (Kim et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2022b).…”

Microbial interactions and metabolisms in response to bacterial wilt and black shank pathogens in the tobacco rhizosphere

“…Previous studies focused on using microbial antagonists for controlling soil-borne diseases, and many biocontrol agents were found virtually for plant disease biocontrol against a single pathogen ( Dunne et al., 1997 ; Liu et al., 2007 ; Shanks et al., 2012 ; Han et al., 2016 ). However, managing just one of the pathogens may not fully solve the problem since different pathogens often co-occur on the same plant, resulting in a disease complex causing synergistic yield losses ( Shen et al., 2022 ). An environmentally friendly alternative could be using multiple strains with a broad spectrum of antagonism against multiple pathogens, which may provide excellent and new options for soil-borne disease control.…”

Differences in soil physicochemical properties and rhizosphere microbial communities of flue-cured tobacco at different transplantation stages and locations

“…Good soil conditions are needed for high-quality tobacco production ( Mallikharjuna Rao et al, 2016 ; Begum et al, 2021 ; Shen et al, 2022 ). To achieve sustainable tobacco production, soil quality must be improved ( Wang et al, 2019 ; Yan et al, 2019 ; Wang et al, 2022 ).…”