Welcome to Chinese Journal of Ecology! Today is Share:

cje

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effect of apple special fertilizer on soil enzyme activities and functional diversity of microbial community in a non-irrigated apple orchard.

ZHANG Chao1, ZHOU Xu1, ZHANG Hai1*, GUO Fu-qiang1,  YAN Jun-fang2, ZHU Li-yuan1 #br#   

  1. (1College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China;  2Yangling Besun Agricultural Industry Group Co., Ltd., Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China).
  • Online:2017-12-10 Published:2017-12-10

Abstract:

The characteristics of soil microbes are sensitive indicators of soil fertility. Fertilization can influence soil physiochemical and biological properties. The present study investigated the effect of inorganic fertilizer (IF), combination of manure and inorganic fertilizer (MIF) and apple special fertilizer (ASF) at the equal N, P2O5 and K2O amount on soil nutrients, enzyme activities and functional diversity of microbial community based on Biolog technique in a 10-year-old Fuji apple orchard. The results showed that the MIF and ASF treatments significantly increased soil organic matter content by 24.01% and 21.07% compared with IF treatment, respectively, whereas there were not significant differences in soil total nitrogen content among treatments. The contents of soil available nitrogen, available phosphorus and available potassium in IF and ASF treatments were higher than those in MIF treatment. MIF and ASF treatments all significantly increased the activities of soil catalase, urease, invertase and alkaline phosphatase, and higher urease and invertase activities (by 18.97% and 13.69%, respectively) were found under ASF treatment compared to MIF treatment. Average well color developments (AWCD), substrate richness (S), Shannon index (H), and Simpson index (E) of microbial community were the highest in ASF treatment. The carbon sources mainly utilized by soil microorganisms were carbohydrates, polymers, amino acids and carboxylic acids, and ASF treatment significantly increased the utilization of carboxylic acids, polyphenols and amines by soil microbes. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed that fertilization could alter the carbon source use characteristics of soil microbial community, and carbohydrates were the determinant carbon sources that had a great impact on the first principal component (PC1). Our results confirmed that different fertilization treatments exerted significant impacts on soil enzyme activities and microbial community function of apple orchard, and the application of ASF was better for the improvement of soil enzyme activities and functional diversity of microbial community.
 

Key words: denitrification, nitrogen cycle., elevated atmospheric CO2, nitrification, microorganisms