Assessment of the relationship between geologic origin of soil, rhizobacterial community composition and soil receptivity to tobacco black root rot in Savoie region (France)

In Morens (Switzerland), soils formed on morainic deposits (which contain vermiculite clay and display particular tobacco rhizobacterial community) are naturally suppressive to Thielaviopsis basicola-mediated tobacco black root rot, but this paradigm was never assessed elsewhere. Here, we tested the relation between geology and disease suppressiveness in neighboring Savoie (France). Two morainic and two sandstone soils from Savoie were compared based on disease receptivity (T. basicola inoculation tests on tobacco), clay mineralogy (X-ray diffraction), tobacco rhizobacterial community composition (16S rRNA gene-based taxonomic microarray) and phlD (+) Pseudomonas populations involved in 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol production (real-time PCR and tRFLP). Unlike in Morens, in Savoie the morainic soils were receptive to disease whereas T. basicola inoculation did not increase disease level in the sandstone soils. Vermiculite was not present in Savoie soils. The difference in rhizobacterial community composition between Savoie morainic and sandstone soils was significant but modest, and there was little agreement in bacterial taxa discriminating soils of different disease receptivity levels when comparing Morens versus Savoie soils. Finally, phlD (+) rhizosphere pseudomonads were present at levels comparable to those in Morens soils, but with different diversity patterns. The morainic model of black root rot suppressiveness might be restricted to the particular type of moraine occurring in the Morens region, and the low disease receptivity of sandstone soils in neighboring Savoie might be related to other plant-protection mechanisms.