Effects of soil managements on soil microbial communities and development of Fusarium wilt in lisianthus production
We hypothesized that different soil management strategies differentially affected soil microbial communities, and more importantly the variation in core microbiome profoundly contributed to the difference in the outcomes of plant health and productivity. In this study, a pot experiment was conducted using a lisianthus monoculture soil to investigate the effects of the physicochemical and biological regulation strategies on soil microbiome. The steam disinfestation and chemical fumigation were employed as representatives of physical and chemical principles, and reductive soil disinfestation based on organic amendment was employed a biological alternative. To assess the contributions of pathogen suppression and microbiome manipulation on the disease outcomes, the pathogen F. oxysporum was re-inoculated into half of these strategies-treated soils. We aimed to address the following issues: (1) the responses of total and core microbiomes to different soil management principles, (2) the relative importance of bacterial and fungal communities manipulated by these principles to plant health, (3) to what extent soil core microbiome contributes to the suppression of pathogen invasion and plant disease.