ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Effects of Long-Term Organic Fertilizer
Application on Tea Plantation Soil
of Its Physical and Chemical Properties
and Microbial Communities
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1
College of Resource and Environmental Engineering, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
2
College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang, Guizhou 550025, China
Submission date: 2024-01-01
Final revision date: 2024-02-28
Acceptance date: 2024-03-28
Online publication date: 2024-06-05
Corresponding author
Zuyong Chen
College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang, Guizhou 550025, China
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ABSTRACT
Chemical fertilizer is widely used in agricultural fertilization, but over-fertilization has caused soil
quality degradation. Some studies have shown that the application of organic fertilizer is beneficial
to soil quality, but there are few studies researching the long-term organic fertilizer application effect
on tea plantation soil. In this paper, we studied the physical and chemical properties and microbial
communities of tea plantation soil through long-term field experiments by applying organic fertilizer
with equal nitrogen amounts. The experiment showed that the soil’s physical and chemical properties
were improved after long-term application of total organic fertilizer. Respectively, the soil organic
matter (SOM), available potassium (K), available zinc (Zn), available copper (Cu), and pH were
significantly enhanced, the soil bulk density was significantly increased, the water-stable aggregates
were improved, the soil microbial diversity was increased. It was found that the main bacteria in tea soil
were Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Actinobacteria. Moreover, results from redundancy analysis
showed t hat t he S OM ( p = 0 .001), A lkali h ydrolyzed n itrogen ( p = 0 .049) a nd p H ( p = 0 .008) h ad
significant effects on the soil bacterial community composition. Thus SOM increased the relative richness
of non-dominant bacteria, such as Bacteroidetes, Gemmatimonadestes, and Firmicutes. Overall, our
results suggest that the use of organic fertilizer instead of chemical fertilizer could effectively improve
the quality of tea plantation soil.