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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Sec. Agroecology and Ecosystem Services

This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobial Ecosystems of Plant-based Agricultural Production Systems: Methods, Impacts, and Implications for Crop Improvement and Yield EnhancementView all articles

The response of the abandoned fallow soil microbiome to wheat cultivation and the use of biopreparation

Provisionally accepted
Anastasiia KimeklisAnastasiia Kimeklis1,2*Grigory V. GladkovGrigory V. Gladkov1,3Vyacheslav I. PolyakovVyacheslav I. Polyakov2Timur I. NizamutdinovTimur I. Nizamutdinov2Svetlana V. BalakinaSvetlana V. Balakina4Aleksei A. IvanovAleksei A. Ivanov4Arina A. KichkoArina A. Kichko1Vladimir K. ChebotarVladimir K. Chebotar1Evgeny E. AndronovEvgeny E. Andronov1Evgeny AbakumovEvgeny Abakumov1,2
  • 1All-Russian Research Institute of Agricultural Microbiology of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Pushkin, Russia
  • 2Sankt-Peterburgskij gosudarstvennyj universitet, Saint Petersburg, Russia
  • 3FGBUN Zoologiceskij institut Rossijskoj akademii nauk, Saint Petersburg, Russia
  • 4Leningradskij naucno-issledovatel'skij institut sel'skogo hozajstva Belogorka - filial FGBNU Federal'nyj issledovatel'skij centr kartofela A G Lorha, Belogorka, Russia

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The re-involvement of fallow soils in agriculture is a pressing issue in ensuring food safety. We used the soil microbiome as an indicator of the state of fallow land in the taiga climatic zone compared to arable land and native soil, and its response to crop cultivation and the use of biopreparations. For this purpose, a laboratory vegetation experiment was conducted on growing wheat using the biopreparation “Extrasol” on fallow, arable (Plaggic Retisols), and native forest (Retisol) soils. Following this, wheat yields, as well as changes in soil chemical parameters and their microbiomes, were recorded. In terms of the main chemical parameters and taxonomic profile of the microbiome, the fallow soil resembled arable land. Both agrogenic soils maintained a crop yield higher than the benchmark forest soil. The introduction of the biopreparation led to more pronounced changes in the soil microbiomes of the fallow and field soils compared to the forest. However, the composition of the fallow soil microbiome was resilient to wheat cultivation, similar to the undisturbed Retisol. Namely, wheat cultivation produced less significant changes to the microbiome of forest and fallow soils than to the microbiome of arable land. Moreover, the application of biopreparation didn't have a substantial impact on the yield of wheat on fallow and forest soils, unlike on field soil. The results showed that the fallow soil exhibited properties typical of both arable land and undisturbed Retisol in different aspects. Over time, the fallow microbiome retains the signature profile and the response to biopreparation of anthropogenic plaggic soil, but becomes more resilient to wheat cultivation, as does native soil. This suggests that the 30-year fallow soil of the taiga has economic potential for re-involvement in agricultural practice.

Keywords: arable land, Fallow land, microbiologicalpreparation, Plaggic Retisol, soil microbiome, wheat

Received: 20 Aug 2025; Accepted: 09 Dec 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Kimeklis, Gladkov, Polyakov, Nizamutdinov, Balakina, Ivanov, Kichko, Chebotar, Andronov and Abakumov. 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: Anastasiia Kimeklis

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