Soil Amendment with Cow Dung Modifies the Soil Nutrition and Microbiota to Reduce the Ginseng Replanting Problem

Ginseng is a profitable crop worldwide; however, the ginseng replanting problem (GRP) is a major threat to its production. Soil amendment is a non-chemical method that is gaining popularity for alleviating continuous cropping obstacles, such as GRP. However, the impact of soil amendment with either cow dung or canola on GRP reduction and the associated soil microbiota remains unclear. In the present study, we evaluated the effect of soil amendment with cow dung, canola seed powder, and without amendment (control), on the survival of ginseng seedling transplants, the soil bacterial and fungal communities, and their associated metabolic functions. The results showed that cow dung increased ginseng seedling survival rate by 100 percent and had a remarkable positive effect on ginseng plant growth compared to control, whereas canola did not. Cow dung improved soil nutritional status in terms of pH, electrical conductivity, , total carbon, total phosphorus, and available phosphorus. The amplicon sequencing results using Illumina MiSeq showed that canola had the strongest negative effect in reducing soil bacterial and fungal diversity. On the other hand, cow dung stimulated beneficial soil microbes, including , , , and , while suppressing Acidobacteriota. Community-level physiological profiling analysis using Biolog Ecoplates containing 31 different carbon sources showed that cow dung soil had a different metabolic activity with higher utilization rates of carbohydrates and polymer carbon sources, mainly Tween 40 and beta-methyl-d-glucoside. These carbon sources were most highly associated with Bacillota. Furthermore, predicted ecological function analyses of bacterial and fungal communities showed that cow dung had a higher predicted function of fermentation and fewer functions related to plant pathogens and fungal parasites, signifying its potential to enhance soil suppressiveness. Co-occurrence network analysis based on random matrix theory (RMT) revealed that cow dung transformed the soil microbial network into a highly connected and complex network. This study is the first to report the alleviation of GRP using cow dung as a soil amendment, and the study contributes significantly to our understanding of how the soil microbiota and metabolic alterations cow dung can aid in GRP alleviation.