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Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield

Perennial crops in agricultural systems can increase sustainability and the magnitude of ecosystem services, but yield may depend upon biotic context, including soil mutualists, pathogens and cropping diversity. These biotic factors themselves may interact with abiotic factors such as drought. We te...

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Autores principales: McKenna, Thomas P., Koziol, Liz, Bever, James D., Crews, Timothy E., Sikes, Benjamin A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7319328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32589642
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234546
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author McKenna, Thomas P.
Koziol, Liz
Bever, James D.
Crews, Timothy E.
Sikes, Benjamin A.
author_facet McKenna, Thomas P.
Koziol, Liz
Bever, James D.
Crews, Timothy E.
Sikes, Benjamin A.
author_sort McKenna, Thomas P.
collection PubMed
description Perennial crops in agricultural systems can increase sustainability and the magnitude of ecosystem services, but yield may depend upon biotic context, including soil mutualists, pathogens and cropping diversity. These biotic factors themselves may interact with abiotic factors such as drought. We tested whether perennial crop yield depended on soil microbes, water availability and crop diversity by testing monocultures and mixtures of three perennial crop species: a novel perennial grain (intermediate wheatgrass—Thinopyrum intermedium-- that produces the perennial grain Kernza(®)), a potential perennial oilseed crop (Silphium intregrifolium), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Perennial crop performance depended upon both water regime and the presence of living soil, most likely the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in the whole soil inoculum from a long term perennial monoculture and from an undisturbed native remnant prairie. Specifically, both Silphium and alfalfa strongly benefited from AM fungi. The presence of native prairie AM fungi had a greater benefit to Silphium in dry pots and alfalfa in wet pots than AM fungi present in the perennial monoculture soil. Kernza did not benefit from AM fungi. Crop mixtures that included Kernza overyielded, but overyielding depended upon inoculation. Specifically, mixtures with Kernza overyielded most strongly in sterile soil as Kernza compensated for poor growth of Silphium and alfalfa. This study identifies the importance of soil biota and the context dependence of benefits of native microbes and the overyielding of mixtures in perennial crops.
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spelling pubmed-73193282020-06-30 Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield McKenna, Thomas P. Koziol, Liz Bever, James D. Crews, Timothy E. Sikes, Benjamin A. PLoS One Research Article Perennial crops in agricultural systems can increase sustainability and the magnitude of ecosystem services, but yield may depend upon biotic context, including soil mutualists, pathogens and cropping diversity. These biotic factors themselves may interact with abiotic factors such as drought. We tested whether perennial crop yield depended on soil microbes, water availability and crop diversity by testing monocultures and mixtures of three perennial crop species: a novel perennial grain (intermediate wheatgrass—Thinopyrum intermedium-- that produces the perennial grain Kernza(®)), a potential perennial oilseed crop (Silphium intregrifolium), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Perennial crop performance depended upon both water regime and the presence of living soil, most likely the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in the whole soil inoculum from a long term perennial monoculture and from an undisturbed native remnant prairie. Specifically, both Silphium and alfalfa strongly benefited from AM fungi. The presence of native prairie AM fungi had a greater benefit to Silphium in dry pots and alfalfa in wet pots than AM fungi present in the perennial monoculture soil. Kernza did not benefit from AM fungi. Crop mixtures that included Kernza overyielded, but overyielding depended upon inoculation. Specifically, mixtures with Kernza overyielded most strongly in sterile soil as Kernza compensated for poor growth of Silphium and alfalfa. This study identifies the importance of soil biota and the context dependence of benefits of native microbes and the overyielding of mixtures in perennial crops. Public Library of Science 2020-06-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7319328/ /pubmed/32589642 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234546 Text en © 2020 McKenna et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
McKenna, Thomas P.
Koziol, Liz
Bever, James D.
Crews, Timothy E.
Sikes, Benjamin A.
Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
title Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
title_full Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
title_fullStr Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
title_full_unstemmed Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
title_short Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
title_sort abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7319328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32589642
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234546
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