Rhizosphere bacterial communities of wheat vary across the growing season and among dryland farming systems.

Abstract

Despite knowledge that seasonality and plant phenology impact soil microbiota, farming system effects on soil microbiota are not often evaluated across the growing season. We assessed the bacterial diversity in wheat rhizosphere soil through the spring and summer of 2016 in winter wheat (Triticum aestivium L.) in Montana, USA, from three contrasting farming systems: a chemically-managed no-tillage system, and two USDA-certified organic systems in their fourth year, one including tillage and one where sheep grazing partially offsets tillage frequency. Bacterial richness (range 605 - 1174 OTUs) and evenness (range 0.80 - 0.92) peaked in early June and dropped by late July (range 92 - 1190, 0.62-0.92, respectively), but was not different by farming systems. Organic tilled plots contained more putative nitrogen-fixing bacterial genera than the other two systems. Bacterial community similarities were significantly altered by sampling date, minimum and maximum temperature at sampling, bacterial abundance at date of sampling, total weed richness, and coverage of Taraxacum officinale, Lamium ampleuxicaule, and Thlaspi arvense. This study highlights that weed diversity, season, and farming management system all influence rhizosphere soil microbial communities. Local environmental conditions will strongly affect any practical applications aimed at improving soil diversity and functionality, especially in semi-arid regions where abiotic stress and seasonal variability in temperature and water availability drive primary production.