Response of soil quality and microbial community to in-situ return of vegetable residues over three consecutive cropping seasons

The in-situ return of vegetable residues is a common agricultural practice aimed at improving soil quality and managing waste. However, the effects of multi-season continuous residue return, particularly when combined with different amendments, on soil physicochemical properties and microbial community structure in open-field systems remain to be further elucidated. This project investigates the impact of three consecutive seasons of in-situ vegetable residue return on soil health and microbial ecology in open-field vegetable production systems.A field experiment was established with four treatments: no return (CK), residue return (HTJ), residue return + compound microbial inoculant (HTJS), and residue return + ammonia water (HTJN). Soil samples were collected after each season to analyze a comprehensive set of parameters. These include soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and soil microbial (bacterial and fungal) community composition and diversity via high-throughput amplicon sequencing. Additionally, a Soil Quality Index (SQI) based on a minimum dataset was developed to comprehensively evaluate treatment effects, and path analysis was employed to explore the driving factors influencing soil quality.