ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Rhamnolipid-modified biochar improves the microenvironment of saline soils to enhance soil productivity
Provisionally accepted
- Tarim University, Aral, China
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This study provides insights into the potential pathways through which rhamnolipid-modified biochar enhances saline soil quality and peanut yield through physicochemical and microbial pathways, specifically by reducing total dissolved solids, sequestering soil organic carbon, and enriching salt-tolerant functional bacteria. It also indirectly suggests that the application of biochar in saline-alkali soils may carry an ecological risk, potentially reducing the diversity of soil bacterial communities. The findings provide both theoretical and technical support for the sustainable improvement of saline soils in arid regions, as well as for the long-term production of peanuts. Three treatments were established for this study: a control (CK, with no biochar applied), biochar (BC, cotton stalk biochar), and modified biochar (RBC, rhamnolipid-modified biochar), to analyze the effects of rhamnolipid-modified biochar on soil physicochemical properties, microbial communities, enzyme activities, and peanut yield in saline soils. The experimental results demonstrated that rhamnolipid-modified biochar significantly increased total carbon (30.33%-45.20%), total nitrogen (28.66%-55.76%), exogenous organic carbon pool in soil (244.07%-370.10%), and moisture content (25.61%-42.42%) in the 0-20 cm soil layer, while decreasing total dissolved solids (39.40%-56.78%) and activating the activities of urease, sucrase, and cellulase. Furthermore, it alleviated the adverse effects of single biochar on bacterial diversity and enriched eutrophic phyla such as Proteobacteria, Acidobacteriota, and Firmicutes, as well as salt-tolerant functional genera like Neobacillus, Luteitalea, and Ascomycota, thereby promoting the complex microbial community succession driven by carbon accumulation. Random forest analysis indicated that TC, TOC, and SCL are key predictors of soil microbial community changes. PLS-PM revealed the potential pathways linking modified biochar to the optimization of soil physicochemical properties and microbial communities, thereby improving soil quality and promoting a 27.57% increase in peanut yield.
Keywords: microbial community, peanut, Rhamnolipid-modified biochar, Soil enzyme activity, soil quality
Received: 10 Oct 2025; Accepted: 11 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wang, Jing, Zhang, Liang, Abulaitia, Zang and Wang. 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:
Hongbo Wang
Xingpeng Wang
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