Impacts of short-term tillage and crop residue incorporation managements on soil microbial community in a double-cropping rice field

Soil microbial community were usually reconsidered as a sensitive indicator in soil quality and soil environment change of paddy field. However, the effects of different tillage and crop residue incorporation managements on soil bacterial community under the double-cropping rice cropping system were still need to further investigated. Therefore, the impacts of different tillage and crop residue incorporation managements on soil bacterial community under the double-cropping rice cropping system in southern of China were studied by using phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) profile method in the present paper. The experiment included four different tillage treatments: rotary tillage without crop residue input as a control (RTO), no-tillage with crop residue retention (NT), rotary tillage with crop residue incorporation (RT), and conventional tillage with crop residue incorporation (CT). Compared with RTO treatment, grain yield of rice with NT, RT and CT treatments increased by 1.21%, 3.13% and 6.40%, respectively. This results showed that soil aC15:0, C16:0, iC17:0, C19:0c9, 10 fatty acids with CT and RT treatments were higher than that of RTO treatment, while soil C16:1 omega 6c and C18:1 omega 9t fatty acids with NT treatment were higher than that of RTO treatment, respectively. Soil G(+) and G(-) bacteria PLFAs contents with CT treatment were higher than that of NT, RT and RTO treatments, while the value of soil G(+)/G(-) bacteria PLFAs with NT treatment were higher than that of CT, RT and RTO treatments. This results indicated that Richness and McIntosh indices with CT treatment were significantly higher than that of RTO treatment. Principal component analysis (PCA) results showed that the first and second principal components (PC1 and PC2) were explained 93.2% of total variance with all tillage treatments. Except C12:0, C14:0 2OH and C18:2 omega 6, all unsaturated and cyclopropyl PLFAs contents were belong to PC1. PC1 and PC2 were explained 88.4% of total variance with all tillage treatments. There had significantly positive correlation between soil Richness, Shannon indices and soil PLFAs, G(+) bacteria, G(-) bacteria, fungi contents. As a result, it were benefit practices for increasing soil bacterial community structure in the double-cropping rice field of southern China by combined application of rotary, conventional tillage with crop residue incorporation managements.

Automated summary

The study demonstrates that traditional tillage and crop residue incorporation can increase rice yield and positively influence the soil microbial community structure. Different tillage practices also affect the content of specific fatty acids in the soil, while traditional tillage treatment significantly enhances the diversity of soil bacterial community.