Cultivar and Soil Properties Jointly Shape the Rhizosphere Microbial Communities and Biochemical Properties Associated with Ginger (Zingiber officinale) Productivity.

Whether high-yielding cultivars recruit a universally beneficial microbial community or deploy location-specific strategies remains unknown. To address this, we evaluated two ginger cultivars ('Dianjiang G04' and 'Dianjiang G07') grown at two locations with contrasting soil physicochemical properties, Kunming (KM) and Luoping (LP), Yunnan Province, China. Ginger yield, soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and rhizosphere bacterial and fungal communities were investigated using a two-site × two-cultivar factorial design. Cultivar exerted the strongest effect on yield, with G07 outyielding G04 and KM-G07 producing the highest yield. Compared with Luoping, Kunming soils generally exhibited higher pH, NO3--N, available phosphorus, available potassium, enzyme activities, and alpha diversity. Bacterial and fungal communities were clearly differentiated between locations. Additionally, cultivar-related community divergence was more pronounced in Luoping than in Kunming. Redundancy analysis showed that pH, total phosphorus, total potassium, invertase, urease, and protease were closely associated with microbial variation, while functional predictions revealed location- and cultivar-dependent shifts in bacterial metabolism and fungal trophic guilds. Partial least squares regression identified cultivar, nutrients, enzyme activities, Trichocladium, and Bacillus as key yield predictors. These findings indicate that ginger performance depends on cultivar-soil properties compatibility rather than on cultivar selection alone: cultivar determines yield, but soil properties shape the microbial community, confirming that high-yielding cultivars achieve superiority through site-specific microbial recruitment. Therefore, G07 should be prioritized in soils with more favorable pH conditions and greater N, P, and K availability, whereas in less fertile or acidic soils, alternative cultivars or targeted soil amelioration may be more appropriate.