Midwestern corn farm soil health and microbe-mediated plant acclimation to drought, 2021

This data set is part of a project studying how agricultural soil properties and management affect plant resilience to drought. We collected soils from maize farms in the Midwestern United States that used different management practices and characterized soil physical, chemical, and microbial properties. We then tested the ability of microbial communities from these soils to help plants acclimate to simulated drought in a greenhouse. We first conditioned the soil microbial communities with maize plants under drought or well-watered conditions, and then tested the ability of these conditioned communities to affect maize drought tolerance in a greenhouse experiment where plants were exposed to drought or well-watered conditions.