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The Cardinal Edge

Program/Event

Arts and Research Showcase 2025

Abstract

Soil microbial communities are increasingly recognized as an important factor in sustainable agriculture. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), are key players in these communities, known to benefit their plant host in a number of ways, such as increased nutrient uptake. Plants can partner with multiple AMF species; however, little is known about how interactions between multispecies communities of AMF impact plant growth and yield. In an agricultural setting, the long-term development of these communities following practices such as rotational planting or cover cropping is also an important consideration, but there is little research on the long-term legacy of AMF communities or on the effects of AMF communities conditioned by previous crop growth. This project analyzed how pod yield and vegetative growth of soybean were affected by legacy soil communities, each composed of three AMF species which had previously grown in partnership with cover crops, compared to fresh inoculum of the same three-species AMF mixtures.

We found that soybean yield differed significantly (p << 0.01) among treatment groups in ANOVA testing, though in post-hoc statistical tests, pairwise comparisons between legacy and direct inoculation groups were largely not statistically significant. Additionally, we found a strong tradeoff between vegetative growth and yield, though this relationship does not appear to differ between treatments. While further study is needed to explore the complexities of this subject, these findings have interesting implications for the use of soil microbiome management in enhancing the capacity of sustainable agriculture.

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