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. 2019 May 28;14(5):e0217018.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217018. eCollection 2019.

The effects of chemical and organic fertilizer usage on rhizosphere soil in tea orchards

Weiwei Lin  1   2 , Manhong Lin  2   3 , Hongyan Zhou  4 , Hongmiao Wu  1   2 , Zhaowei Li  1   2 , Wenxiong Lin  1   2   3
Affiliations

The effects of chemical and organic fertilizer usage on rhizosphere soil in tea orchards

Weiwei Lin et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Sustainable agriculture is an important global issue. The use of organic fertilizers can enhance crop yield and soil properties while restraining pests and diseases. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of long-term use of chemical and organic fertilizers on tea and rhizosphere soil properties in tea orchards. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and high-throughput sequencing technology analyses were used to investigate heavy metals content and bacterial composition in rhizosphere soils. Our results indicated that organic fertilizer treatment significantly decreased Cu, Pb and Cd contents in rhizosphere soil sample. The results also showed that treatment with organic fertilizer significantly decreased the contents of Cd, Pb and As in tea leaves. Furthermore, organic fertilizer significantly increased the amino acids content of tea and the pH of the soil. The use of organic fertilizer significantly increased in the relative abundance of Burkholderiales, Myxococcales, Streptomycetales, Nitrospirales, Ktedonobacterales, Acidobacteriales, Gemmatimonadales, and Solibacterales, and decreased the abundance of Pseudonocardiales, Frankiales, Rhizobiales, and Xanthomonadales. In conclusion, organic fertilizer can help to shape the microbial composition and recruit beneficial bacteria into the rhizosphere of tea, leading to improved tea quality and reduced heavy metals content in rhizosphere soil and tea leaves.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Amino acids, polyphenols, and caffeine contents of tea under treatment with organic (OrgS) or chemical (NorS) fertilizer.
Columns with different letters are statistically different (LSD test, P < 0.05).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Heavy metals content in non-rhizosphere and rhizosphere soil samples from tea orchards under organic or chemical fertilizer treatment.
Columns with different letters are statistically different (LSD test, P < 0.05).
Fig 3
Fig 3. Heavy metals content in tea leaf samples from tea orchards under organic or chemical fertilizer treatment.
Columns with different letters are statistically different (LSD test, P < 0.05).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Observed richness, OTUs and diversity of soil samples from organic and chemical fertilizer treatment groups.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Beta diversity analysis of microbial composition.
(A) Weighted unifrac heatmap; (B) Hierarchical clustering analysis; (C) Principal Component Analysis.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Venn diagram and relative percentages of bacterial phyla in the four different soil samples.
Fig 7
Fig 7. Relative abundance of the top 20 bacterial orders in the four different soil samples.
Fig 8
Fig 8. Heat map analysis of the top 20 bacterial orders in the four different soil samples.
Fig 9
Fig 9. Redundancy analysis (RDA) of the correlation between the most abundant genera of bacteria and soil physiochemical properties.
TP: total phosphorus, TN: total nitrogen, TK: total potassium, AN: available nitrogen, AK: available potassium, AP: available phosphorus.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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