Microbiome in conventional and organic cereal fields

We conducted a study in cereal fields from Spain that are subject to different farming systems: conventional, organic and ploughed. The organic samples are derived from fields that have been managed under this system for 20 years. Soil samples were collected in cereal fields from Castilla y León (Spain) and provided by the Agricultural Technological Institute of Castilla and Leon (ITACyL) at harvest time in 2022. Samples were extracted using the DNeasy PowerSoil Kit. The ITS2 amplicon library was amplified with ITS3_KYO2 / ITS4_KYO1 primers (GATGAAGAACGYAGYRAA / TCCTCCGCTTWTTGWTWTGC). The V3-V4 16S rRNA amplicon library was amplified with Bakt_341F / Bakt_805R primers (CCTACGGGNGGCWGCAG / GACTACHVGGGTATCTAATCC). The samples were sequenced using a paired-end, 2x300pb cycle run on an Illumina MiSeq sequencing system. Primers were not trimmed before deposition. The original study looked at the role of the farming system in fungal and bacterial diversity, focused primarily on toxigenic fungi and the effectiveness of bacteria as biocontrol agents (BCAs) against them.