Impact of differential maize straw return practices and winter cover crops on soil microbial communities in bulk and rhizosphere soils
This project investigates the effects of diverse maize straw return practices combined with different winter cropping systems on soil microbial community structures and physicochemical properties. A comprehensive field experiment was established with seven distinct treatments: a control with no straw return plus winter wheat (CK), and six straw-return strategies. These strategies differed in the timing (in-season vs. delayed), method (shredding vs. mulching-then-incorporation), and combination with winter covers (fallow, green manure, ryegrass, or wheat). The treatments were: T1 in-season shredded straw return + winter fallow; T2 in-season shredded return + green manure; T3 mulching with delayed incorporation + winter fallow; T4 mulching with delayed incorporation + green manure; T5 in-season shredded return + ryegrass; T6 in-season shredded return + winter wheat.Soil samples were collected from both the bulk soil and the rhizosphere soil. For each sample, a suite of soil physicochemical properties was analyzed. The composition and diversity of the bacterial and fungal communities were profiled via high-throughput amplicon sequencing targeting the 16S rRNA gene (V3-V4 region) and the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region, respectively.This dataset provides the raw sequencing files alongside corresponding soil property metadata. It serves to elucidate the synergistic effects between agricultural management practices and the soil microbiome, offering insights for optimizing straw return strategies to enhance soil health.