Tillage and fertilization are common practices used to enhance soil fertility and increase yield. Changes in soil edaphic properties associated with different tillage and fertility regimes have been widely examined, yet, the microbially mediated pathways and ecological niches involved in enhancing soil fertility are poorly understood. The effects of long-term conventional tillage and no-till in parallel with three fertility treatments (No fertilization, N-only, and NPK) on soil microbial communities were investigated in a long-term field study that was established in the 1970's. Here, we used highthroughput sequencing of bacterial, fungal and oomycetes markers, followed by community-level functional and ecological assembly to discern principles governing tillage and fertility practices' influence on associated soil microbiomes. Both tillage and fertilizer significantly altered microbial community structure, but the tillage effect was more prominent than the fertilizer effect. Tillage significantly affected bacteria, fungi, fusaria, and oomycete beta-diversity, whereas fertilizer only affected bacteria and fungi beta-diversity. In our study different tillage and fertilizer regimes favored specific networks of metabolic pathways and distinct ecological guilds. No-till selected for beneficial microbes that translocate nutrients and resources and protect the host against pathogens. Notably, ecological guilds featuring arbuscular mycorrhizae, mycoparasites, and nematophagous fungi were favored in no-till soils, while fungal saprotrophs and plant pathogens dominated in tilled soils. Conventional till and fertilizer management shifted the communities toward fast growing competitors. Copiotrophic bacteria and fusarium species were favored under conventional tillage and in the presence of fertilizers. The analysis of the metagenomes revealed a higher abundance of predicted pathways associated with energy metabolism, translation, metabolism of cofactors and vitamins, glycan biosynthesis and nucleotide metabolism in no-till. Furthermore, no specific pathways were found to be enriched under the investigated fertilization

No abstract

This is the first study focused on using AgNPs in control of OTA production.

No abstract

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have potential antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi. The synthesis of AgNPs have been reported using several chemical and physical methods which are not friendly environment. Therefore, our technique has focused on the synthesis of AgNPs by natural compounds. The aim of this study has been to synthesis AgNPs by safe nontoxic method using Egyptian honey (EH) as reducing and capping agents and to investigate its ability to reduce the mycelial growth and the production of aflatoxins (AFs) and ochratoxin A (OTA) by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus ochraceus, respectively. AgNPs have been characterized by UV-Visible Spectrophotometer, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM).The obtained results indicated that the synthesis of honey AgNPs depends on the concentration of bulk metal (AgNO3) used in the synthesis process. The TEM image has revealed the formation of spherical well dispersed AgNPs, while the main size of AgNPs detected by DSL is 9.9 nm. Our results have indicated that 3 mg -100 ml media of honey derived AgNPs have reduced the aflatoxin (AF) G1, G2, B1 andB2 production by A. parasiticus to 77.55, , 62.91, 58.76 and 66.56%, respectively and ochratoxin A (OTA) by A. ochraceus to 79.85 % with significantly inhibitory effect on mycelial growth. The percentage of reduction depends on the AgNPs concentration.