Boosting beneficial root Bacteroidota for sustainable wheat production

ackground

Wheat is one the world’s most important crops and has undergone extensive breeding to produce modern polyploid cultivars that are dependent on high levels of environmentally damaging agrochemicals. It is known that the plant microbiome has potential to support plant nutrition and disease suppression in a sustainable manner (1). 

Previous work has demonstrated the impacts of breeding on the wheat microbiome. It has been demonstrated that the polyploidisation of wheat has diminished the plant growth promoting root microbiome due to a reduction in beneficial bacteria of the phylum Bacteroidota, and that this phylum are also key pathogen-suppressing members of the plant microbiome (2, 3, 4). 

Objectives

1. Gain genomic insights into the mode of action of beneficial (i.e. plant growth promoting and pathogen suppressing) versus non-beneficial Bacteroidota. 

2. Establish colonisation efficiency of Bacteroidota isolated from ancient and modern crop varieties under various environmental conditions using synthetic microbial communities. 

3. Develop beneficial Bacteroidota synthetic microbial communities from ancient wheats for in planta application to modern wheats. Determine the influence of the indigenous microbiome on colonisation effectiveness of Bacteroidota. 

Novelty

Modern crop varieties grown under intensive conditions have lost key Bacteroidota members from their microbiome, rendering them more dependent on agrochemicals for their nutrition and disease control. Microbial engineering with beneficial Bacteroidota as inoculants has potential to support plant growth in an environmentally friendly way, less dependent on the application of inorganic fertilisers and fungicides. 

Timeliness

The Bacteroidota have emerged as a phylum of bacteria with plant growth promoting and disease suppressing potential. These bacteria possess the phosphate-insensitive phosphatase, PafA, which unlike other phosphatases remains active at elevated phosphate levels (5). Taken with the observation that ancient diploid wheats have an elevated level of beneficial root-associated Bacteroidota, it is timely to collaboratively develop Bacteroidota-based solutions for agriculture. 

References 

1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mib.2017.03.005 

2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58402-y 

3. https://doi.org/10.1093/ismejo/wrae131 

4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2023.03.018 

5. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118122119 

6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43170-023-00190-2