<title>Abstract</title> Soil amendment is an important strategy to improve soil quality and crop yield. During 2014–2019, we investigated the effects of tobacco straw return with lime on soil nutrients, soil microbial community structure, tobacco leaf yield and quality in southern Anhui, China. A field experiment was conducted in four treatments: straw removed (CK), straw return (St), straw return with dolomite (St + D), and straw return with lime (St + L). Results showed that after five years of continuous treatm…