Eric Vukicevich

TL;DR: It is concluded that non-crop vegetation management is a viable and cost-effective means of minimizing crop decline in perennial monocultures but is in need of more direct experimental investigation in perennial agroecosystems.

TL;DR: Groundcover management may be a viable tool to manipulate soil fungi with the potential for improving ecosystem services such as conservation biological control of soil dwelling insect pests and deterring pathogens in perennial cropping systems.

TL;DR: The results show that soil feedback outcomes for grapevines, including negative effects of black foot pathogens such as Ilyonectria liriodendri, could depend on groundcover vegetation management that alters root-associated fungal communities.

TL;DR: AM fungal structures differed between young and old roots with more arbuscules in young roots and more vesicles and/or spores in older roots, and this trend was consistent across the different groundcover-trained communities, although one groundcover led to moreArbuscules overall.

TL;DR: Although treatments did not change abundance of the measured fungal guilds in bulk soil, abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in vine roots was lowest with birdsfoot trefoil as living mulch, and this study may help growers to select live mulch species appropriate for the soil conditions and resource availability of their site.