Effect of dry mycelium of Penicillium chrysogenum fertilizer on soil microbial community composition, enzyme activities and snap bean growth.

The dry mycelium fertilizer (DMF) was produced from penicillin fermentation fungi mycelium (PFFM) following an acid-heating pretreatment to degrade the residual penicillin. In this study, it was applied into soil as fertilizer to investigate its effects on soil properties, phytotoxicity, microbial community composition, enzyme activities, and growth of snap bean in greenhouse. As the results show, pH, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total potassium, and organic matter of soil with DMF treatments were generally higher than CON treatment. In addition, the applied DMF did not cause heavy metal and residual drug pollution of the modified soil. The lowest GI values (<0.3) were recorded at DMF8 (36 kg DMF/plat) on the first days after applying the fertilizer, indicating that severe phytotoxicity appeared in the DMF8-modified soil. Results of microbial population and enzyme activities illustrated that DMF was rapidly decomposed and the decomposition process significantly affected microbial growth and enzyme activities. The DMF-modified soil phytotoxicity decreased at the late fertilization time. DMF1 was considered as the optimum amount of DMF dose based on principal component analysis scores. Plant height and plant yield of snap bean were remarkably enhanced with the optimum DMF dose.