Abstract: The characteristic of soil fungal communities are important indicators for assessing soil quality. In this study, we investigated the correlation between different short-term straw incorporation methods and soil physicochemical properties, fungal communities and Chinese cabbage yield. There were four different treatments in the experiment, including all fresh chopped straw incorporation (FSA), half fresh chopped straw incorporation (FSH), all rotted chopped straw incorporation (RSA) and half rotted chopped straw incorporation (RSH), with conventional tillage without straw incorporation as the control (CK). The results showed that asparagus straw incorporation reduced the yield of Chinese cabbage, among which FSA and FSH significantly decreased yield by 7.11% and 6.02% (P<0.05), respectively. There were no significant effects of straw incorporation on soil physicochemical properties. Shortterm incorporation of asparagus straw increased fungal community diversity, with the FSA treatment showing significantly higher fungal community diversity than CK (P<0.05). At the genus level, straw incorporation treatments increased the relative abundance of Aspergillus, but decreased that of Pseudopyrenochaeta and Plectosphaerella. Redundancy analysis showed that pH and available potassium were the key environmental factors affecting fungal community composition (P<0.05). Co-occurrence network analysis revealed an increase in fungal symbiotic network complexity and connection tightness. In summary, short-term asparagus straw incorporation altered the diversity and composition of fungal communities by changing the proportion of beneficial fungi and pathogenic fungi. This poses a certain biocontamination risk to soil quality and ultimately leads to a reduction in cabbage yield. Therefore, full consideration should be given to the micro-ecological effects of straw incorporation in practical production to avoid potential adverse impacts caused by indiscriminate straw return practices.

Key words: straw incorporation, soil fungi, community, yield