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Management and soil conditions influence common scab severity on potato tubers via indirect effects on soil microbial communities.

Common scab, caused by Streptomyces scabies and related species, is a potato tuber blemish disease that causes reductions in marketable yield worldwide. Evidence of suppression of common scab by indigenous soil microbial populations has been found in several studies. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how common scab severity relates functionally to potato varieties, farming systems, soil physical and chemical properties, and soil microbial communities. These factors may affect disease directly or indirectly by affecting one of the other variables. We performed a survey of 303 sampling locations across 12 fields in Wisconsin, and used structural equation modeling to disentangle the direct effects of potato market classes, farm management (conventional vs. organic) and soil physiochemical properties on common scab severity from their indirect effects mediated through soil bacterial and fungal communities. We found that while potato market classes affected disease severity directly, the effects of farm management and soil physiochemistry were best explained as indirect, mediated by their impacts on soil bacterial communities. This suggests that evaluating the consequences of specific management practices for soil microbial communities may be useful for understanding disease pressure across fields.