Watermelon microbiome project. Fusarium oxysporum

Mulching is an important agricultural management for increasing watermelon productivity and land-use efficiency because it has beneficial effects on improving water-use efficiency, and reducing soil erosion. However, there is relatively little available information regarding the effects of long-term continuous monoculture farming on soil fungal communities and related fungal pathogens in arid and semi-arid regions. In this study, we characterized the fungal communities of four treatment groups including gravel-sand mulched farmland, gravel-sand mulched grassland, deserted gravel-sand mulched grassland and natural grassland using amplicon sequencing.