Search

Soil acidification is a global issue that significantly reduces crop productivity. Lime application is a viable agricultural strategy to ameliorate soil acidification. However, the knowledge of the impact of lime application on the soil microbiome is still limited. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the diversity, structure, and compositions of the soil bacterial community after liming on wheat fields. We established winter wheat plots in two precipitation zones, Pendleton and Moro in Oregon, facing soil acidity stress, and conducted bacterial microbiome analysis after lime application using Illumina MiSeq. Soil pH increased with increasing rates of lime amendments in the surface soil (0–7.5 cm) but did not significantly change in deeper soil (7.5–15 and 15–22.5 cm). High-throughput sequencing results revealed that liming had marginally effects on soil bacterial communities. A few bacterial families, including Cytophagaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, Intrasporangiaceae, Phyllobacteriaceae, Propionibacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, and Sphingobacteriaceae, were correlated with lime application. In contrast, location and soil depth had a strong effect on soil bacterial communities. In addition, the impacts of liming on soil bacterial diversity and taxa were inconsistent and location- and soil depth-dependent. Furthermore, four nitrifiers were quantitated from all samples by qPCR assay. Ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and Nitrobacter were most abundant in the topsoil, while ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA) and Nitrospira were more abundant in deeper soil. Only Nitrospira was significantly influenced by soil pH. Overall, these results suggest that location, soil depth, lime amendments, and their interactions have significant impacts on the soil bacterial community that may influence plant health and crop yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]