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Houseplants are a wonderful addition to any home, providing natural beauty, and creating a cool atmosphere. While watering and light are essential for their survival, proper fertilization is just as critical to ensure that your plants thrive. Learn how to fertilize your indoor plants with us today. This post contains some affiliate links. You can […]

The post How To Fertilize Indoor Plants appeared first on Clever Bloom.

How much fertilizer do you use? In North America, it is common to reply with something like “1/8 tsp of a 20-6-12 fertilizer. The problem with this answer is that it is difficult to compare the amount to someone using, for example, 1/4 tsp of 7-3-5 fertilizer. Are either of these close to the recommended … Read More

The post Calculating the PPM of Nitrogen in Your Fertilizer appeared first on gardenmyths.com.

New Phytologist, EarlyView.

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Winterizing chicken coop pens and boxes is a crucial way to keep your chickens safe and warm in the cold season. Follow our five steps for happier, healthier chucks

Skip grueling workouts at the gym and get fit in your garden! These gardening activities will give you a better workout while growing something amazing.

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Abstract

Little is known about how seedlings sense new soil environments and how the rhizosphere bacteriome changes accordingly. It is important to elucidate these changes to better understand feedbacks that contribute to nutrient cycling and plant fitness. Here, we explored how the tomato rhizosphere bacteriome developed weekly throughout the vegetative developmental stage and with variable nitrogen (N) fertilizer additions. Bacterial communities expressing diverse functions highly fluctuated in the first and second week after planting, and these fluctuations diminished progressively after the third week. Bacteria capable of biocontrol stabilized after the fourth week, while those involved in nutrient cycling continued to change in abundance week-to-week. Thus, bacterial specialization may be concomitant with bacteriome stabilization. With N fertilizer application, bacteria with diverse functions continued to fluctuate through the fifth week. However, regardless of fertilization, bacterial communities stabilized by the sixth week. It may take two weeks for roots to select for soil bacteria to assemble a specific rhizosphere bacteriome, but when N is applied, this period extends. Subsequently, roots may select for bacteria that are already established in the rhizosphere rather than from the bulk soil. This study showcases the dynamics of rhizosphere assemblage and how this process is affected by N additions.

Abstract

Plants can modify soil properties over time through interactions with soil microorganisms, creating a legacy that may influence subsequent plant growth. This study investigates how soil vegetation covers affect growth and nutrient uptake and phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N)use efficiencies in two eucalypt species, and the impact of new plant cultivation on soil microbial traits. Using a greenhouse microcosm experiment, we compared soils from a 20-year eucalypt plantation (Euc) and secondary vegetation (Sec) covers, cultivated for five months with Eucalyptus grandis, E. globulus, or left uncultivated. We measured plant growth, P and N concentrations, root and soil enzyme potential activities, and soil properties. Results showed that E. globulus plants in Euc soil had 23% higher shoot biomass production and 27% greater P uptake efficiency compared to plants in Sec soil. Both eucalypt species showed improved P and N use efficiencies in Euc soils, suggesting beneficial soil legacy effects. Furthermore, microbial traits related to arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi persisted partially in Sec soils, suggesting a beneficial AM fungal legacy for new eucalypt cultivation. The potential activity of enzymes associated with soil carbon and sulfur cycles was clearly influenced by plant presence, whereas enzymes related to the P cycle maintained their potential activity regardless of plant presence, indicating a lasting soil legacy for P mineralization enzymes. The results highlight the role of plant-soil feedback in nutrient utilization and suggest that soil management strategies should consider past vegetation to enhance sustainable eucalypt production.

Abstract

Disease-resistant wheat cultivars exhibited significantly lower infection rates in field conditions, associated with higher microbial diversity in key compartments such as the rhizosphere soil and phylloplane. Microbial community analysis revealed compartment-specific selection effects, with significant horizontal microbial transfers noted across plant tissues, suggesting a strong compartment-dependent selection from soil microbiomes. Further, resistant varieties were enriched of potential beneficial microbial taxa that contribute to plant health and disease resistance from seedling to adult stages. This was verified by rhizosphere microbiome transplantation experiment, where the inoculation of the rhizosphere microbiome of resistant cultivars suppressed pathogen infection and enhanced plant growth, indicating that wheat resistance to soil-borne virus disease depended on the interaction of the host with the microbial community around it. Our results also demonstrated that the microbial composition and network at the seedling stage predicted wheat health and pathogen susceptibility. Disease infection simplified the intra-kingdom networks and increased potentially beneficial taxa such as Massilia, Bacillus, and Pseudomonas within the microbiome. Overall, our findings provide novel insights into the microbial dynamics influenced by host traits and their implications for disease resistance and plant health, offering potential strategies for agricultural biocontrol and disease management.