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Poster

Session: Session 2 Presenting Authors at Posters (Evens)

P-270 - Unravelling physicochemical and microbial drivers of benzoxazinoid-dependent plant-soil feedback: Insights from a meta-analysis of maize-wheat rotations

Thursday, July 17, 2025
13:30 - 15:15  
Location: Confex Hall 3
Nutrient exchange & role of metabolites in plant-microbe interactions

Understanding factors that drive plant-soil feedback is essential for advancing sustainable agricultural practices. Maize-wheat rotation, one of the most common crop rotations, involves benzoxazinoids (BX) exuded by maize roots, which can alter the soil microbiome, which in turn can affect subsequent wheat growth. However, these effects appear to depend on physicochemical soil properties (PSP). In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of three field experiments comparing wildtype maize with BX-depleted maize and measured the effects on subsequent wheat growth. With a LASSO regression modelling we identified key PSP and microbial drivers underlying BX-dependent maize-wheat feedback. To generalize these findings, we tested the influence of these drivers in a maize–Arabidopsis meta-analysis. Our results indicate that BX exudation alters root-associated microbial communities without affecting PSP. Feedback effects on wheat growth ranged from strongly positive, with wheat grown on soil conditioned by wildtype maize outperformed wheat on BX-depleted soil, to strongly negative, with wheat on BX-depleted soil growing taller. This feedback direction was strongly correlated with PSP, particularly with plant available iron (PA-iron). We generalized our findings of PA-iron effects by showing that Arabidopsis exhibited a similar feedback pattern in response to soil conditioned by BX-exuding maize. These results provide new insights for optimizing PSF-driven agricultural practices.