Plant health microbiome

December 23rd, 2022

Solving the mysteries of the plant microbiome to develop new crop management strategies, increase crop health and productivity, and help meet increasing global food demands.

Wheat crop health microbiome

Understanding the plant microbiome to enhance wheat crop growth and health, and help meet the increasing demand on this grain.

Crop stubble. Credit - Donna Senza Fiato

Crop residue microbiome

Investigating the microbial processes underpinning degradation of crop residues to improve soil fertility and limit carry-over of stubble-borne disease.

Disease suppressive soils – nature’s solution to pathogens

Disease suppressive soils are those with the ability to limit the impact from soilborne pathogens on crops. Research on their unique microbiome could lead to significant new management solutions for disease prevention.

Locust swarm. Credit - Bishnu Sarangi

Investigating the microbial basis of population suppression in Australian plague locusts

Cases of Australian plague locust population suppression occurred despite extreme swarming conditions forecasted for the wet Australian summer. Investigations into cause of this population suppression could lead to novel ways to protect cereal crops from this pest species.

Wheat field. Credit - Meric Tuna

Publication alert – Diversity, community structure, and potential functions of root-associated bacterial communities of different wheat (Triticum aestivum) cultivars under field conditions

Better understanding the structure and function of wheat-soil microbiome to enable the development of superior cultivars for nutrient acquisition, disease protection and stress tolerance.

Soil. Credit George Becker

Publication alert – Growing soil organic carbon in dryland agricultural systems

The understanding of plant–microbe interactions can enable the growth of soil organic carbon, an important factor of soil fertility, in dryland agricultural systems, where it can be limiting.

Publication alert – Do small RNAs unlock the below ground microbiome-plant mystery?

Explores the below-ground world of microbiomes (bacteria and fungi) and plants, and how they interact and communicate with each other through inter-kingdom signalling. How these interactions play out can determine the plant’s health in both disease suppressive and non-suppressive soils.

Podcast – the impact of the soil microbiome on Australian agricultural crops.

Dr Lachlan Dow sits down with the team from the farm advice podcast to discuss the impact of soil microbiomes on agricultural crops.

Publication alert – Streptomyces and their specialised metabolites for phytopathogen control.

A comparative review of in vitro and in planta studies exploring methods in which the metabolites produced by Streptomyces can help defend plants from pathogens, the signalling between the plant, pathogen and biocontrol agent and how these the streptomyces metabolites can be used to protect crops

Publication alert: Ranking environmental and edaphic attributes driving soil microbial community structure and activity with special attention to spatial and temporal scale

Discusses what attributes drive soil microbial community structure and activity at a variety of scales?