Abstract:

To illustrate the impact of seed pelleting technology on vegetation and soil， vegetation and soil samples were collected from 8 sampling sites in four aerial sowing years from 2017 to 2020， including 4 seed pelleted areas and 4 non-pelleted areas， and comparative analysis of vegetation growth， soil moisture， nutrients and soil microbial changes was conducted. Results show that： （1） The annual growth rates of plant coverage， aboveground biomass， underground biomass and total biomass were 13.72%， 395.88%， 127.97% and 526.16%， respectively. The increment of every index in the non-pelletized area was obviously lower than that in the pelletized area. （2） There was no significant difference in soil water content and soil nutrients between pelleted and non-pelleted sown areas in each year of aerial seeding， and soil organic carbon increased and soil total nitrogen decreased with the increase of growing years， the total phosphorus content of the soil varied between 208.67-222.5 and 192.83-213.33 mg·kg^-1 in the pelletized and non-pelletized areas under different years of aerial sowing. （3） Soil DNA was extracted from 8 plots for microbial community analysis， and only the 2017 and 2019 samples from pelleted sown areas met the requirements for follow-up sequencing. Compared with 2019， the Simpson index of pelleted soil in 2017 decreased slightly， while Sobs Index， Chao1 Index and ACE index increased significantly by 46.67%， 43.73% and 43.91%， respectively. In general， the pelleting of air-seeded seeds could improve the soil environment of the Alxa Left Banner Desert.

Key words: aerial seeding, seed pelleting, vegetation, soil, soil microorganism, Tengger Desert