Background and aims Intercropping legumes and grasses presents a sustainable strategy to improve soil fertility, enhance crop productivity, and strengthen food security in low-input agricultural systems. This study investigated the effects of intercropping Vigna unguiculata with Eragrostis curvula on soil bacterial communities, extracellular enzyme activities, nutrient dynamics, and plant growth kinetics and nutrition. Methods...

To promote the use of legumes for the alleviation of sodicity in small-scale irrigated sugarcane plantations to reduce the cost of soil amendments for small-scale sugarcane farmers. A greenhouse pot experiment was conducted by growing Canavalia rosea (Sw.) DC. in high sodium (Na + ) concentration/sodic sugarcane plantation soils over a period of seven months. Plant material and soil characteristics, including salinity indicato...

Cajanus cajan (Pigeon pea) enhances soil nutrition by increasing bacterial communities and their associated enzyme activities, creating optimal conditions for the growth of succeeding crops like Eragrostis curvula (Weeping Love Grass). This study explored the viability of rotating C. cajan and E. curvula and assessed their effects on soil nutrient cycling. Cajanus cajan and E. curvula were monocropped and rotated in soils coll...

Canavalia rosea is an extremophilic legume that grows in hypersaline and nutrient-deficient ecosystems. The extremophilic nature of C. rosea may be attributed to its ability to establish symbiotic associations with nutrient mineralizing and plant growth promoting (PGP) bacteria housed in the nodules. This study examined legume-microbe symbiosis and plant nutrition of C. rosea growing in subtropical coastal zone in KwaZulu-Nata...

Cycads are ancient plants that establish symbiotic associations with plant growth-promoting (PGP) microbes. These ancient associations are rarely contrasted with more recent associations involving PGP microbes and legumes. This study investigated if Vigna unguiculata growing in Encephalartos villosus rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils shares similar symbionts with E. villosus and if there is any sanction by plants towards c...