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Mycorrhizal fungi-mediated uptake of tree-derived nitrogen by maize in smallholder farms

Nature Sustainability volume 5, pages 64–70 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Trees within farmers’ fields can enhance systems’ longer-term productivity, for example, via nutrient amelioration, which is indispensable to attain sustainable agroecosystems. While arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are known to improve plant access to soil nutrients, the potential of AMF to mediate nutrient uptake of tree-derived nitrogen (N) by crops from beyond the crops’ rooting zones is unclear. We hypothesized that AMF quantitatively contribute to the crop uptake of tree-derived N. We set up root- and AMF-exclusion and control plots around faidherbia trees (Faidherbia albida) and used the 15N natural abundance technique to determine the magnitude of AMF-mediated uptake of tree-derived N by maize from beyond its rooting zone in smallholder fields. We further tested whether AMF-mediated N uptake decreases with distance from tree. We show that within one cropping season, maize obtained approximately 35 kg ha–1 biologically fixed N from faidherbia. One-third of tree-derived N in maize leaves was attributed to AMF-mediated N uptake from beyond the maize rooting zone and two-thirds to N from tree leaf litter, regardless of distance from tree. As hypothesized, maize grown close (1 m) to faidherbia obtained significantly more tree-derived N than that at farther distances (4 and 5 m). Thus, the faidherbia–AMF association can enhance agroecosystem functioning.

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Fig. 1: Low-input agroforestry system with maize and F. albida in central Malawi and visualization of the experimental manipulation used to study the effect of AMF-mediated uptake of tree-derived biologically fixed N2 by maize.
Fig. 2: Proportion of tree-derived N in leaves of maize surrounding F. albida.

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Data availability

The analysed datasets and R scripts used to analyse the data are available in the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5275322. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. I. Nyoka, E. Barrios, K. Mwafongo, C. Katema, G. Chisusu and H. Warren at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) for assistance with getting set up in Malawi and ICRAF for providing office and storage space in Lilongwe. Especially, we are grateful to M. Damiano, who, together with P. Chagomelana, L. Chingwalu, N. Chagomelana, K. Bernart, M. Sandram and P. C. Nsasa, greatly assisted with fieldwork. We are thankful to the farmers from Ndindi, Malawi, who granted us access to their land. Further, we thank F. Tamburini, B. Wilde, C. Mikita and B. Jahn-Humphrey for assisting with laboratory and preparatory work and M. van der Heijden for providing input during the initial phase of designing the experiment. Thanks to A. C. Wartenberg for critically reviewing our manuscript. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under project number 31003 A_163460.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sustainable Agroecosystems Group, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Janina Dierks, Wilma J. Blaser-Hart & Johan Six

  2. Agroecology and Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Janina Dierks

  3. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Wilma J. Blaser-Hart

  4. Plant Nutrition Group, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Lindau, Switzerland

    Hannes A. Gamper

  5. Animal Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

    Hannes A. Gamper

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Contributions

J.D., J.S., W.J.B.-H. and H.A.G. designed the experiment. J.D. and J.S. collected the data. J.D. performed data analyses with input from J.S. The manuscript was written by J.D. with input from J.S., W.J.B.-H. and H.A.G.

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Correspondence to Janina Dierks.

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Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks Pierre-Emmanuel Courty and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Source data

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data for Fig. 2 on the proportion of tree-derived nitrogen in leaves of maize surrounding Faidherbia albida.

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Dierks, J., Blaser-Hart, W.J., Gamper, H.A. et al. Mycorrhizal fungi-mediated uptake of tree-derived nitrogen by maize in smallholder farms. Nat Sustain 5, 64–70 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00791-7

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