Crop rotational complexity affects plant-soil nitrogen cycling during water deficit

One of the biggest environmental challenges facing agriculture is how to both supply and retain nitrogen (N), especially as precipitation becomes more variable with climate change. We used a greenhouse experiment to assess how contrasting histories of crop rotational complexity affect plant-soil-microbe interactions that govern N processes, including during water stress. With higher levels of carbon and N cycling hydrolytic enzymes, higher mineral-associated organic matter N concentrations, and an altered microbial community, soils from the most complex rotation enabled 80% more corn N uptake under two moisture regimes, compared to soil from monoculture corn. Higher levels of plant N likely drove the changes in corn leaf gas exchange, particularly increasing intrinsic water use efficiency by 9% in the most complex rotation. The water deficit increased the standing pool of nitrate 44-fold in soils with a history of complex crop rotations, compared to an 11-fold increase in soils from the corn monoculture. The implications of this difference must be considered in a whole cropping systems and field context. Cycling of ¹⁵N-labeled fresh clover residue into soil N pools did not depend on the water regime or rotation history, with 2-fold higher recovery in the mineral vs. particulate organic N pool. In contrast, the water deficit reduced recovery of clover ¹⁵N in corn shoots by 37%, showing greater impacts of water deficit on plant N uptake compared to organic N cycling in soil. This study provides direct experimental evidence that long-term crop rotational complexity influences microbial N cycling and availability with feedbacks to plant physiology. Collectively, these results could help explain general observations of higher yields in more complex crop rotations, including specifically during dry conditions.