ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1620502
This article is part of the Research TopicHarnessing Plant–Microbe Interactions to Improve Nitrogen Use Efficiency and Plant-Soil Health for Sustainable AgricultureView all 12 articles
Impacts of different types of straw returning on soil physicochemical properties, microbial community structure, and pepper quality
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Pepper, Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guiyang, China
- 2Anshun CollegeYu, Anshun, China
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Straw returning serves as a critical agronomic practice for soil quality improvement and sustainable agricultural development. However, the differential regulatory mechanisms of cellulose-rich (e.g., pepper straw) versus lignin-rich (e.g., mulberry stem) straw types on soil physicochemical properties, microbial community structure, and crop nutritional quality remain poorly understood, particularly in pepper cultivation regions of Karst mountainous. In this study, taken the pepper planting soil as research object, the treatments of cellulose pepper straw (CS), lignin mulberry stem (MS) and control (CK) were set up. By measuring soil nutrients, microbial community diversity and pepper nutritional quality indicators, combined with high-throughput sequencing technology, the ecological effects of different types of straw returning were systematically analyzed. The results showed that CS treatment significantly increased nitrate nitrogen content and available potassium, but decreased organic matter content by 8 % and microbial biomass nitrogen by 65.5 %. MS treatment significantly increased soil organic matter and microbial biomass carbon, and promoted the increase of amino acid content by 59.6 %. Microbial community analysis showed that Pseudomonas had the highest values in all three treatments, CS treatment enriched Actinomycetota, while MS treatment inhibited Acidobacteriota. Correlation analysis revealed that the functions of bacteria and fungi were positively correlated with SOC, NO3 --N, AP, TK,
Keywords: straw returning, soil microbial community, Pepper quality, Karst areas, high-throughput sequencing technology
Received: 29 Apr 2025; Accepted: 06 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gai, Chen, Xiong, Zhou, Yuan and Mou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yumei Mou, Institute of Pepper, Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guiyang, China
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