Soil amendments promoting nitrifying bacteria recovery faster than the denitrifying bacteria at post soil fumigation

Chloropicrin (CP) is a soil fumigant that not only reduces disease-causing pathogenic microbes but regrettably also those that benefit soil quality and crop health. However, we have few knowledge on rapidly restoring populations of beneficial microbes suppressed by CP fumigation. Here we used genetic sequencing technology to monitor changes in the recovery of soil bacteria in response to ammonium sulfate added to the soil following CP fumigation. The results showed that regardless of the N fertilizer addition rate, the accumulated NH4+-N in CP fumigated soil was rapidly consumed within 42 d. The rapid reduction in NH4+-N coincided with the observed recovery nitrogen-cycling microorganisms, especially the nitrification bacteria AOA and AOB that contributed to the formation of NH4+-N. Additionally, we further observed that the resilience index of nitrifying bacteria (AOB and AOA) was greater than the resilience index of denitrifying bacteria that contain the denitrification genes nirS, nirK and nosZ (0.12 to 0.55 vs. -0.27 to 0.073). These results revealed that N fertilizer stimulated the recovery of nitrifying bacteria more than denitrifying bacteria. Our research suggests that ammonium sulfate applied to CP fumigated soil could be used commercially to improve soil health as a result of an increase in beneficial microbes.