Plant-microbe interactions in sustainable crop production

As with all multicellular organisms, a multitude of microorganisms can be also found in horticultural crops. Bacteria and fungi colonizing the roots assist the water and nutrient uptake of plants, affect their development and increase resistance and tolerance against biotic and abiotic stresses. Due to these characteristics, microorganisms are regarded as important factors in sustainable plant production management systems, saving resources and avoiding synthetic pesticides or growth regulators to a large extent. For successful application, the genotype of the plant and the microbial community colonizing the plant and its surroundings play an important role.

Beside resistance to pathogens, the response of plants to microorganisms only rarely plays a role in the breeding of horticultural crops. However, molecular analyses have shown that numerous genes play a role in these interactions. In addition, plant responses like improved water and nutrient uptake and, consequently, improved growth are traits that can easily be quantified. Therefore, the analysis of plant populations with different genotypes should lead to molecular markers which could be used for the breeding of new cultivars suitable for sustainable production systems. Moreover, genes can be identified which are involved in positive responses to microbial root colonization.

The performance of plants is determined by the community structure of microorganisms colonizing different plant tissues. It is important to know whether the plant has an influence on the composition of this community structure. The comparison of microbial communities of different cultivars and their wild progenitors, as well as of particular genotypes produced by genetic engineering, could provide information in this regard. By means of sequencing and network analyses with parallel isolation and cultivation, bacteria and fungi can be identified which play a stabilizing role in microbial communities. Subsequently, interactions between microorganisms and the impact of synthetic microbial communities on the performance of horticultural crops are then to be analyzed and tested.

You can find more information on the work of our research group in the annual report of the Institute of Microbiology at FSU Jena.