Maize is one of South Africa's most economically-valuable crops. Globally, it fills the diets of billions of people with basic carbohydrates. Poor management practices, such as over-fertilisation, have gone up significantly due to the quest to feed the ever-increasing human population. Therefore, it is imperative to identify eco-friendly fertilisers that do not have adverse effects on soil and maize development. Plants establish associations with soil microorganisms for various functions including nutrient cycling, stress tolerance and pathogen immunity (Liu et al. 2019). Increased knowledge of these mechanisms is a productive and positive way for the improvement of sustainable agriculture (Babalola et al. 2021).

The rhizosphere, which is the medium between plants and soil, has been labelled a 'hotspot' for new genes and biomolecules (Babalola et al. 2020). Plant-root exudates generate nourishing conditions for microbial growth and easily attract a selection of soil microorganisms (Adedeji and Babalola 2020; Canarini et al. 2019; Chukwuneme et al. 2021). Microbial communities in the rhizosphere are recruited from the large and diverse pool of microbes in bulk soils through root exudate chemical signalling (Adedeji and Babalola 2020;Hartman and Tringe 2019). This has contributed to an increase in microbial activity and quantity in rhizosphere soils compared to bulk soils. In contrast, microbial diversity significantly reduces in the rhizosphere soil relative to bulk soil (Praeg et al. 2019; Hartman and Tringe 2019).

Rhizosphere microbes exist to protect against pathogens and improve growth by developing phytohormones. These organisms enable plants to handle environmental disruptions, such as irregular climate-related changes in temperature, drought and salinity (Lu et al. 2018). It has been shown that nitrogen-fixing rhizobia and the mycorrhizal fungi in the rhizosphere have significant impacts on plant nutrient status (Mendes et al. 2013; Lu et al. 2018). For example, symbiotics, such as mycorrhizal fungi, are important for the absorption of nutrients and minerals from the soil to plants. Therefore, studies on the rhizospheric microbes and their functions could open several appealing features, from alleviating several of the consequences of climate change and environmental stress on plants by modifying plant features using microbial inocula to enhancing crop production. Therefore, the discovery of new genes in the maize rhizosphere could be an incentive to fix food insecurity and promote agricultural sustainability.

Value of the dataset

Sampling

Sample processing

Data processing

The maize rhizosphere soil sample had more microorganisms than the bulk soil sample.

Target

Taxonomic range

Functional range

Maize associated microbiome studies (Suppl. material 1).

Resource 1

Resource 2

Creative Commons Public Domain Waiver (CC-Zero)

OOB would like to thank the National Research Foundation of South Africa for a grant (Grant Ref: UID123634; OOB) that has supported work in our laboratory. RRM would like to thank the North-West University for the postgraduate bursary that was granted during her MSc programme. AEA is grateful to the North-West University for postdoctoral bursary and research support.

North-West University

All the mentioned authors contributed substantially and intellectually to the work. OOB designed the research, revised the work critically for important intellectual content, performed quality assurance, provided funding acquisition, project administration and resources. RRM was involved in data curation, formal analysis, investigation, visualisation of data and writing of the original draft of the manuscript. AEA was involved in data curation, visualisation of data, reviewing and thoroughly editing of the original draft, validation and formal analysis.

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest, either financial or commercial wise.