Effects of soil fertilization practices on soil microbial abundance and diversity in the highbush blueberry production system

浆果的生产高度依赖于适当的土壤准备和肥力管理。了解最佳施肥措施的一个关键组成部分是确定它们对土壤微生物群落和整体土壤健康的影响。这是因为土壤微生物群落可以直接影响作物的表现，它们的丰度和多样性可以根据施肥处理而变化。我们正在申请研究资金，用于拟议的ENGAGE研究项目，并支持与行业合作伙伴天蓝园艺有限公司（SBH）建立研究合作。拟议的ENGAGEproject将通过将土壤微生物群落数据叠加在植物性能和作物质量数据上，为SBH目前进行的基于田间的蓝莓施肥研究增加价值。该研究项目将确定四种不同的替代施肥处理（高磷肥[10-34-0]、亚磷酸盐、腐殖酸和海带提取物）对土壤微生物群落组成（不同分类群的总生物量和相对生物量）的影响，并将这些指标与植物性能数据相关联。了解微生物的丰度和多样性，以应对这些肥力的做法，将导致应用园艺的建议，提高水果产量和质量的发展。培养有益的土壤微生物群落将提高养分利用效率，减少对化肥投入的需求，提高环境可持续性，降低种植者的生产成本。

Production of berries is highly dependent on appropriate soil preparation and fertility management. A keycomponent of understanding optimal fertilization practices is determining their impacts on soil microbialcommunities and overall soil health. This is because soil microbial communities can directly influence cropperformance, and their abundance and diversity can vary in response to fertilization treatments. We arerequesting research funds for the proposed ENGAGE research project and to support the establishment of aresearch collaboration with the industry partner, Sky Blue Horticulture Ltd. (SBH). The proposed ENGAGEproject will add value to current field-based blueberry fertilization research conducted by SBH by overlayingsoil microbial community data on plant performance and crop quality data. The proposed research project willdetermine the influence of four different alternative fertilization treatments (high phosphorus fertilizer[10-34-0], phosphites, humic acids and marine kelp extract) on soil microbial community composition (totalbiomass and relative biomass of different taxonomic groups) and relate those metrics to plant performancedata. Understanding microbial abundance and diversity in response to these fertility practices will lead todevelopment of applied horticultural recommendations for improved fruit yield and quality. Fosteringbeneficial soil microbial communities will increase nutrient use efficiency, reducing the need for chemicalfertilizer inputs, improving environmental sustainability and decreasing cost of production for growers.