Soil fungal community comparison of different mulberry genotypes and the relationship with mulberry fruit sclerotiniosis

Mulberry fruit sclerotiniosis is a common soil-borne disease. We hypothesize that there is a relationship between the incidence of mulberry fruit sclerotiniosis and the soil fungal community. Therefore four mulberry genotypes with different resistance to sclerotiniosis were selected to study their soil fungal community under the same condition. A total of 6 phyla and 93 genera were identified from all mulberry samples. Genera affected by genotype, cover, and genotype by cover interactions, were 23, 20, and 11, respectively. There were 10 genera that differed between the resistant cultivars and the susceptible cultivars. In addition, the relative abundances of Humicola and Mortierella in the resistant mulberry cultivars with the cover treatments were significantly higher than that of in the susceptible cultivars. However, the relative abundance of Sclerotiniaceae and Scleromitrula that may cause sclerotiniosis in the uncover treatments were significantly higher compared with the cover treatments. The results suggested that the genotype of mulberry has a significant impact on the soil microbial community that may result in differences in resistance to sclerotiniosis, and covering could reduce the relative abundance of Sclerotiniaceae or Scleromitrula.