Abstract
Grafting is a useful technique in the production of horticultural products. In addition to providing root system, rootstocks can increase stress tolerance of plants, influence scion growth and fruit yield, and harbor rich microbial community. But whether the scion modify plant growth, rootstock phenotypes and rhizosphere bacterial community has not been clearly investigated. Here, 14 different combinations of two scion cultivars grafted on 7 rootstock genotypes were used as research materials, we analyzed the plant traits, rhizosphere bacterial community, and potential functionalities across these plants in the same orchard. We found that apple scion cultivars influenced the tree high and trunk circumference, and the sugar concentration in root varied significantly between scion cultivars, especially fructose and sucrose. Apple scion cultivars was the largest source of variation in the rhizosphere bacterial diversity and taxonomic composition of grafted combinations. The dominant rhizosphere bacterial taxa were correlated with the root sugar concentration, especially sucrose. And the PICRUSt showed that rhizosphere bacteria contained fructose and sucrose metabolism and with plant growth-promoting traits. Additionally, the scion cultivar significantly affected the predicted metabolism of the rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities. Our results showed that apple scion varieties could regulate the composition and structure of rhizosphere bacterial community in different scion / rootstock combinations, which may be achieved by controlling soluble sugar content, especially sucrose in roots.