Evaluating impacts of pesticide seed treatments on soil prokaryotic community in grain crop production in Maryland Coastal Plains

We used 16S rRNA sequencing to evaluate impacts of insecticide seed treatments on the soil prokaryotic community in a three-year crop rotation of full-season soybean, winter wheat, double-cropped soybean and corn at two field sites in the Coastal Plains of Maryland. The study included 4 treatments: untreated seeds, fungicides only, fungicides plus one of two widely used neonicotinoids, imidacloprid (Gaucho 600) or thiamethoxam (Cruiser 5FS). At each site, 4 replicate plots of each treatment were arranged in a Latin square. Bulk soil samples for metagenomic sequencing were collected from full-season soybean (VC-V2 growth stage), winter wheat (Feekes stage 11) and corn (V3-V4 growth stage). Further details of the experimental design can be found in a related published study that used the same experimental plots: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13595.