Long-term crop residue retention enhances sugarcane growth and maintains the structure and function of rhizospheric bacterial communities

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the removal and retention of sugarcane harvest residues for 24 years on the microbial communities of the sugarcane rhizosphere. Rhizosphere samples were taken for isolation and quantification by the most probable number of a nitrogen-fixing bacterial biofilm, and total genomic DNA was extracted for ecological characterization and a metagenomic analysis of genomic libraries of the 16s rRNA gene region V3-V4.