Microbial communities in the root of nature farming rice. rhizosphere metagenome

Nature farming system, an ecological farming system has been proposed to mitigate the negative impacts of intensive use of agrochemicals and mechanization, towards a sustainable crop production. Several nature farming management strategies have been developed including no use of agrochemicals, reduced tillage, mulching with plant residue, crop rotation, intercropping and use of biofertilizer. Root microbiomes are thought to provide robust growth and yield of crops as well as give resilience to pathogen and insect damage under the nature farming system. However, we still have limited understanding on the diversity and functions of root microbiomes associated with the nature farming system. Here, we compared the root microbial community structure of rice grown under nature and conventional farming practices. The high-throughput amplicon sequence analysis revealed that nature farming practices have higher abundance and diverse root microbiomes. The application of chemical fertilizers reduced the microbial community compositions, indicating that the nature farming practice positively shaped root microbiomes well suited for low-input cultivation systems.