Correlation between Soil Bacterial Community Structure and Soil Properties in Cultivation Sites of 13-Year-Old Wild-Simulated Ginseng (Panax ginseng CA Meyer)

Soil properties are one of the major factors determining the growth of vegetation. These properties drive the selection of the dominant bacterial community profiles, which eventually determines the soil quality and fertility. The abundance of preferential bacterial community assists in better productivity of a particular type of vegetation. The increasing focus on the health and well-being of the human population has resulted in a shift in paradigm to concentrate on the cultivation of medicinal plants such as Wild-simulated ginseng (WSG). These plant species take a long time for their growth and are generally cultivated in the mountainous forest trenches of Far East countries like South Korea. This study was conducted to decipher the bacterial community profiles and their correlation with soil chemical properties, which would give a broader idea about the optimum growing conditions of such an important medicinal plant. The important edaphic factor determined in this study was the soil pH, which was recorded to be acidic in all the studied cultivation sites. In agreement with the edaphic factor, the relative abundance of Acidobacteria was found to be highest as this phylum prefers to grow in acidic soils. Moreover, the total organic matter, total nitrogen and cation exchange capacity were found to be significantly correlated with the bacterial community. Hence, these results will help to identify the suitable cultivation sites for WSG and increase the productivity of these medicinal plants.