Soil Microbial Communities in Diverse Agroecosystems Exposed to the Herbicide Glyphosate.

ABSTRACT: Despite glyphosate's wide use for weed control in agriculture, questions remain about the herbicide's effect on soil microbial communities. The existing scientific literature contains conflicting results, from no observable effect of glyphosate to the enrichment of agricultural pathogens such as Fusarium spp. We conducted a comprehensive field-based study to compare the microbial communities on the roots of plants that received a foliar application of glyphosate to adjacent plants that did not. The 2-year study was conducted in Beltsville, MD, and Stoneville, MS, with corn and soybean crops grown in a variety of organic and conventional farming systems. By sequencing environmental metabarcode amplicons, the prokaryotic and fungal communities were described, along with chemical and physical

SUBMITTER: Kepler RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7028976 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature