Soil microbial community response to field soil amendments with increasing C:N

Manipulating soil microbial community activity and composition may change nutrient cycling dynamics. Since many agricultural weeds are highly responsive to nitrogen availability, this may be a useful tool in an integrated weed management program. This experiment looked at soil microbial community response to soil amendments with increasing C:N. We hypothesized that increasing C:N would stimulate microbial activity and immobilize soil nitrogen and that this reduction in nitrogen availability would affect crop-weed competition, especially in soybean fields since soybeans can fix their own nitrogen and are less dependent on soil nitrogen availability. These soil amendments may also change soil microbial community composition and lead to multifunctional benefits through improved soil health.