Organic amendments (OAs) and soilborne biocontrol agents or beneficial microbes (BMs) have been extensively studied and applied worldwide in most agriculturally important plant species. However, poor ...integration of research and technical approaches has limited the development of effective disease management practices based on the combination of these two bio-based strategies. Insights into the importance of the plant-associated microbiome for crop productivity, which can be modified or modulated by introducing OAs and or BMs, are providing novel opportunities to achieve the goal of long-term disease control. This review discusses novel ways of functionally characterizing OAs and how they may be used to promote the effect of added biocontrol agents and or beneficial soil microbiota to support natural suppressiveness of plant pathogens.
•History of compost research regarding microbiology and disease suppressiveness.•Microbial community and key microbes in composting processes.•Methodologies (past and present) used to analyse ...microbial communities in compost.•Application of effective soil microbes for the enrichment of composts.•Potentially important role of non-culturable microbes in disease suppression.
Soil-borne plant pathogens are responsible for causing many crop plant diseases, resulting in significant economic losses. Compost application to agricultural fields is an excellent natural approach, which can be taken to fight against plant pathogens. The application of organic waste products is also an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical use, which unfortunately is the most common approach in agriculture today. This review analyses pioneering and recent compost research, and also the mechanisms and mode of action of compost microbial communities for reducing the activity of plant pathogens in agricultural crops. In addition, an approach for improving the quality of composts through the microbial communities already present in the compost is presented. Future agricultural practices will almost definitely require integrated research strategies to help combat plant diseases.
The aboveground parts of terrestrial plants, collectively called the phyllosphere, have a key role in the global balance of atmospheric carbon dioxide and oxygen. The phyllosphere represents one of ...the most abundant habitats for microbiota colonization. Whether and how plants control phyllosphere microbiota to ensure plant health is not well understood. Here we show that the Arabidopsis quadruple mutant (min7 fls2 efr cerk1; hereafter, mfec)
, simultaneously defective in pattern-triggered immunity and the MIN7 vesicle-trafficking pathway, or a constitutively activated cell death1 (cad1) mutant, carrying a S205F mutation in a membrane-attack-complex/perforin (MACPF)-domain protein, harbour altered endophytic phyllosphere microbiota and display leaf-tissue damage associated with dysbiosis. The Shannon diversity index and the relative abundance of Firmicutes were markedly reduced, whereas Proteobacteria were enriched in the mfec and cad1
mutants, bearing cross-kingdom resemblance to some aspects of the dysbiosis that occurs in human inflammatory bowel disease. Bacterial community transplantation experiments demonstrated a causal role of a properly assembled leaf bacterial community in phyllosphere health. Pattern-triggered immune signalling, MIN7 and CAD1 are found in major land plant lineages and are probably key components of a genetic network through which terrestrial plants control the level and nurture the diversity of endophytic phyllosphere microbiota for survival and health in a microorganism-rich environment.
A global surveillance system for crop diseases Carvajal-Yepes, M; Cardwell, K; Nelson, A ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
2019-Jun-28, 2019-06-28, 20190628, Volume:
364, Issue:
6447
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Global preparedness minimizes the risk to food supplies
To satisfy a growing demand for food, global agricultural production must increase by 70% by 2050. However, pests and crop diseases put global ...food supplies at risk. Worldwide, yield losses caused by pests and diseases are estimated to average 21.5% in wheat, 30.0% in rice, 22.6% in maize, 17.2% in potato, and 21.4% in soybean (
1
); these crops account for half of the global human calorie intake (
2
). Climate change and global trade drive the distribution, host range, and impact of plant diseases (
3
), many of which can spread or reemerge after having been under control (
4
). Though many national and regional plant protection organizations (NPPOs and RPPOs) work to monitor and contain crop disease outbreaks, many countries, particularly low-income countries (LICs), do not efficiently exchange information, delaying coordinated responses to prevent disease establishment and spread. To improve responses to unexpected crop disease spread, we propose a Global Surveillance System (GSS) that will extend and adapt established biosecurity practices and networking facilities into LICs, enabling countries and regions to quickly respond to emerging disease outbreaks to stabilize food supplies, enhancing global food protection.
Trichoderma (teleomorph Hypocrea) is a fungal genus found in many ecosystems. Trichoderma spp. can reduce the severity of plant diseases by inhibiting plant pathogens in the soil through their highly ...potent antagonistic and mycoparasitic activity. Moreover, as revealed by research in recent decades, some Trichoderma strains can interact directly with roots, increasing plant growth potential, resistance to disease and tolerance to abiotic stresses. This mini-review summarizes the main findings concerning the Trichoderma-plant interaction, the molecular dialogue between the two organisms, and the dramatic changes induced by the beneficial fungus in the plant. Efforts to enhance plant resistance and tolerance to a broad range of stresses by expressing Trichoderma genes in the plant genome are also addressed.
Trees and forests provide a wide variety of ecosystem services in addition to timber, food, and other provisioning services. New approaches to pest and disease management are needed that take into ...account these multiple services and the different stakeholders they benefit, as well as the likelihood of greater threats in the future resulting from globalization and climate change. These considerations will affect priorities for both basic and applied research and how trade and phytosanitary regulations are formulated.
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