Decline in Morel Production upon Continuous Cropping Is Related to Changes in Soil Mycobiome

• Published in: Journal of fungi (Basel) 2023-04, Vol.9 (4), p.492
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yan, Sun, Sifan, Luo, Didi, Mao, Ping, Rosazlina, Rusly, Martin, Francis, Xu, Lingling
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological diversity; continuous cropping; Crop yield; Cropping systems; Developmental stages; Dysbacteriosis; Ecosystem components; fungal community; Fungi; Humidity; Life Sciences; Microbiology and Parasitology; Microbiomes; Morchella sextelata; Mushrooms; mycobiome; Niche breadth; Nutrient content; Physicochemical properties; Primordia; Software; soil physicochemical properties; Soil-borne diseases; Taxonomy; Vegetable industry
• ISSN: 2309-608X; 2309-608X
• DOI: 10.3390/jof9040492

The black morel (Morchellaceae, Pezizales) is a valuable edible mushroom that can be cultivated on a large scale, but a severe yield decline is observed during continuous cropping. The effect of long-term cropping on soil-borne diseases and the dysbiosis of the microbiome and how these biotic factors affect the morel yield are not well understood. To help fill this knowledge gap, we designed an indoor experiment to investigate the influence of black morel cropping regimes on soil physicochemical properties, richness and distribution of fungal community, and morel primordial production. In this study, we employed rDNA metabarcoding and microbial network analysis to evaluate the effect of non-continuous and continuous cropping regimes on the fungal community during three developmental stages of black morel production, namely, the bare soil mycelium, mushroom conidial, and primordial stages. The results showed that during the first year, mycelium overwhelmed the resident soil fungal community by reducing the alpha diversity and niche breadth of soil fungal patterns by a greater amount compared to the continuous cropping regime, leading to high crop yield of 12.39 ± 6.09/quadrat but less complex soil mycobiome. To sustain continuous cropping, exogenous nutrition bags and morel mycelial spawn were consecutively added to the soil. The additional nutrient input stimulated the growth of fungal saprotrophic decomposers. The degrading activity of soil saprotrophs, including , caused a significant increase in soil nutrient content. This led to an inhibitory effect on the formation of morel primordia, resulting in a sharp decline to 0.29 ± 0.25/quadrat and 0.17 ± 0.24/quadrat, respectively, in the final morel cropping. Our findings provided a dynamic overview of the soil fungal community during morel mushroom production, allowing us to identify beneficial and detrimental fungal taxa in the soil mycobiome involved in morel cultivation. The information acquired from this study can be applied to mitigate the adverse impact of continuous cropping on the yield of black morel.