Harnessing the potato-microbiome interactions for development of sustainable breeding and production strategies
Final Report Abstract
Current conventional agriculture relies heavily on high nutrient inputs that will be taken up directly by the plants as well as massive use of pesticides. In these systems, plants are considered as sole players, disregarding plant traits that can improve the recruitment of beneficial soil microbes for nutrient mobilization and plant protection. As a consequence, conventional practices have resulted in low nutrient use efficiencies, groundwater pollution and increased soil erosion to non-sustainable levels. High loads of synthetic and organic fertilizers as well as synthetic pesticides have made many beneficial soil biota, especially microbes, redundant. Their multifunctional ecosystem services have been replaced with single-purpose synthetic additives designed to support and protect plants directly, and their interactions with the plant have been neglected in breeding strategies. PotatoMETAbiome aimed at identifying potato genotypes that interact effectively with the soil microbiome, thus generating cultivars that have reduced dependencies on external inputs (synthetic fertilizers and pesticides)while maintaining high yield, under non-stress as well as biotic (pathogen pressure) and abiotic stress conditions. Potato varieties were selected for microbiome-interactive traits (MIT) and analysed for both plant and microbiome genomics, thus identifying the mechanisms controlling the positive effect of the microbiome and genetic markers associated with MIT for use in future potato breeding strategies. Moreover, we evaluated how the use of biologicals can boost nutrient uptake, as well as resilience to biotic (disease) and abiotic stress (drought). The main tasks of the project part of Helmholtz Munich were dedicated to: Plant and Microbiome characterization; Identification of potato root associated microbes that improve tolerance towards drought stress; Identify the mechanisms through which the microbiome influences biotic and abiotic stress resistance.
Publications
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Low soil moisture induces recruitment of Actinobacteria in the rhizosphere of a drought-sensitive and Rhizobiales in a drought-tolerant potato cultivar. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Martins, Benoit R.; Siani, Roberto; Treder, Krzysztof; Michałowska, Dorota; Radl, Viviane; Pritsch, Karin & Schloter, Michael
