Three-year continuous maize cropping improves saline-alkali soil microenvironment and crop productivity

Introduction: The efficient utilization of soda saline-alkali land is of great strategic significance for ensuring China's food security and improving the ecological environment. Cultivating salt-alkali tolerant plants can ameliorate the properties of saline-alkali soil, with rhizosphere microorsganisms playing a crucial role in this process. Methods: We conducted a 3-year field experiment in Lamadian, Daqing, China, using high-throughput sequencing to analyze the maize rhizosphere microbial community diversity and its relationships with soil properties, enzyme activities, and plant yield. Results: were the key factors affecting AP, AK, and TS content, as well as S-SC, S-UE, and S-PPO activities. Conclusion: Three years of maize cultivation effectively improved the physicochemical properties and enzyme activities of saline-alkali soil and drove the restructuring of the rhizosphere microbial community. Notably, the fungal community structure tended to stabilize after 1 year, whereas bacterial diversity increased annually, revealing their distinct roles in ecological restoration. These results provide a theoretical basis and practical guidance for leveraging crop-microbe interactions to ameliorate saline-alkali land.