Intercropping Between Panax ginseng and Arisaema amurense Improves Ginseng Quality by Improving Soil Properties and Microbial Communities

The imbalance in soil microcosm systems caused by the long-term monoculture of ginseng is the main cause of continuous cropping disorder in ginseng, an important factor limiting the development of the ginseng industry. The ecological intercropping pattern of medicinal plants is a planting technology that achieves efficient, high-quality and sustainable production of Chinese medicinal materials by increasing the diversity of farmland ecosystems and improving the stability of soil micro-ecosystems, thereby alleviating the continuous cropping disorder of medicinal plants. However, there remains a lack of research on the ecological intercropping cultivation of ginseng. We constructed a Panax ginseng/Arisaema amurense intercropping model to explore the changes in soil nutrients, enzyme activities, soil microbial communities and ginseng quality. The findings of this study demonstrated that intercropping could decelerate the acidification process of soils and effectively increased 37.02% of soil organic matter, 32.39% of total nitrogen, 5.18% of total potassium and 9.03% of available phosphorus contents in ginseng inter-root soil compared with monocropping. The results revealed that intercropping increased the soil urease and soil acid phosphatase activities while reducing the soil sucrase activity in the inter-root soil. Additionally, intercropping elevated the α-diversity of the inter-root soil bacterial community and diminished the composition and abundance of the fungal community. The intercropping exhibited a pronounced inhibitory impact on two common genera of pathogenic fungi, Fusarium and Cylindrocarpon Furthermore, the total ginsenosides and diverse monomer ginsenosides present in the roots of intercropped ginseng exhibited varying degrees of enhancement. The results of the analyses indicated that the observed increase in ginsenoside content under intercropping was attributable to interactions between soil microorganisms, including the Prevotella_7, Penicillium, Humicola and Deconica, and soil factors such as SOM, NH4+–N, AP and S-UE. Thus, implementing P. ginseng/A. amurense ecological intercropping can effectively mitigate soil acidification, enhance soil nutrient effectiveness, optimize soil microbial community composition and augment ginsenoside content.