root-associated abundant and rare bacterial taxa of diseased eggplants + metagenome
Our sampling site was located in Baoxi Township, Zhejiang Province of China, with a red soil with uniform fertility. Eggplants were sown manually in May and fruits harvested from July to November each year and continuously grown from 2020 to 2023. Sample collection was performed in August 2023. The frequent episodes of hot, humid weather contributed to the prevalence of bacterial wilt in eggplants.We selected eight diseased and eight severely diseased eggplants as well as eight healthy eggplants as control.For each treatment, we had collected both bulk soil and rhizosplane samples as two ecological niches. Three soil cores were collected randomly with at least 0.5 m apart, and mixed to form one composite sample. After removing the loose soil, the roots were sectioned into 20-mm segments and around 5 g fresh roots were placed into a 50-mL falcon tube filled with 25 mL of the phosphate buffer solution. After vortex and centrifugation, the supernatant was discarded and the remaining soil was collected as rhizosplane samples.