Soil properties and early ryegrass growth following mycorrhizal inoculum and earthworm addition
Description
This dataset supports the study Soil properties and early ryegrass growth following mycorrhizal inoculum and earthworm addition. We tested the hypothesis that inoculation with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus mosseae BEG167 and addition of the earthworm Metaphire guillelmi alter soil physical properties, nutrient availability, and the early growth of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L. cv. ‘Barprisma’), with the combined treatment producing distinct responses from either amendment alone. The primary experiment was a 30-day glasshouse pot trial conducted from 12 April to 12 May 2025. Experimental soil was collected from the Nanyang Wolonggang Wuhou Temple Cultural Park construction project, Nanyang, China. Twenty-four independent ryegrass pots were randomly arranged in the glasshouse, with six biological replicates for each treatment: uninoculated control (CK), AMF inoculation (AMF), earthworm addition (EW), and combined AMF plus earthworm addition (AMF+EW). Pots contained 2.80 kg air-dried soil and were maintained at 65–70% estimated field capacity. Pot positions were randomly reassigned every 7 days. The archive provides pot-level measurements of bulk density, particle density, total porosity, gravimetric water content, estimated field capacity, pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, available nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, as well as ryegrass height, adventitious-root length, biomass, and root-to-shoot ratio. It also includes paired soil-core data, earthworm recovery and survival records, AMF root-colonisation observations, one-way ANOVA and Tukey HSD outputs, factorial ANOVA outputs, and Python scripts used to reproduce derived indices and figures. The data show that AMF, earthworms, and their combination produced distinct soil–plant response patterns. The AMF+EW treatment had the lowest bulk density and the highest total porosity, while AMF inoculation increased soil water content, estimated field capacity, available phosphorus, and available potassium. The combined treatment generally produced the highest ryegrass height and root length. These results can be interpreted as short-term, pot-scale responses of urban construction soil to biological soil amendments; they should be used within the experimental conditions described above. The archive also contains an independent temperature-gradient dataset covering six temperatures (4, 0, −5, −10, −15, and −20 °C), with four biological replicates per temperature level. These data support supplementary quadratic-regression analyses of plant growth, soil properties, relative electrical conductivity, and malondialdehyde responses. The corresponding regression tables, residual-diagnostic file, and reproducible Python code are included for transparent reanalysis.
Files
Steps to reproduce
A 30-day glasshouse pot experiment was conducted using construction soil collected in Nanyang, China. Pots (16 cm diameter × 18 cm height) contained 2.80 kg air-dried soil and 20 retained seedlings of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L. cv. ‘Barprisma’). Four treatments were established with six independent pots each: CK, AMF (Glomus mosseae BEG167), earthworm addition (EW; five Metaphire guillelmi per pot), and AMF+EW. Plants were grown at 24/16 °C day/night under a 14 h photoperiod for 30 days. Soil water was maintained at 65–70% estimated field capacity, and pot positions were randomly reassigned every 7 days. At harvest, soil physical properties, water status, pH, EC, organic matter, available N, P and K, plant height, root length, biomass, root-to-shoot ratio, earthworm survival, and AMF root colonisation were measured. Each pot was treated as an independent replicate. Treatment effects were evaluated using one-way ANOVA with Tukey HSD comparisons and factorial ANOVA for AMF, earthworm, and AMF × earthworm effects. The archive contains pot-level data, paired soil-core observations, statistical outputs, supplementary temperature-gradient data, residual diagnostics, and Python scripts for reproducing calculations and figures.
Institutions
- North China University of Water Resources and Electric PowerHenan, Zhengzhou