Community structure of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the roots of maize under different combination of winter cropping and tillage practice in South Kanto region of Japan

In annual cropping systems, the soil surface is covered with cover crops during the winter and fallow period. In this system, rotation of cover crops with summer crops is used to enhance the soil fertility and soil physical properties and to suppress weeds. Additionally, reduced-tillage and cover cropping help maintain an adequate arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) diversity in the soil or increase the diversity of AMF communities, thereby improving the phosphorus uptake by subsequent crops. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of tillage and cover crop management on AMF communities that colonized maize roots in a field trial. We used cover crop treatments comprising hairy vetch, brown mustard and fallow in rotation with maize. We found that the tillage practice significantly affected the diversity of AMF communities regardless of the cover crop type used for maize management.