Translational microbiomes in agriculture: microbial communities as tools to effect host and system health for improved crop production.
Vompe AD, Hamidizade M, López MM, O'Connor E, Kaur L
Summary
8.0/10Using beneficial microbes and microbial communities can improve crop health and production through disease detection, stress monitoring, and targeted microbial interventions. This translational microbiome approach, adapted from medicine, offers growers practical tools to enhance crop performance and sustainability.
Key Findings
Microbiome science provides diagnostic approaches for pathogen/toxin detection and identification of stress-related microbial community patterns in crops
Intervention strategies include synthetic microbial communities, microbiome-aware crop management, and exploitation of seed and vertical microbiome transmission
Translational microbiome framework successfully adapted from human medicine to agriculture to improve crop production systems
Original Abstract
The boom of microbiome research in agriculture over the past several decades allows scientists, growers, policymakers, and businesses to collaborate on a unique opportunity-deploying microbiomes and microbiome attributes for the improvement of crop production. The idea of translational microbiomes is well established in the medical field; however, this framework is relatively new to agriculture. In this review, we discuss a series of methodologies grounded in microbiome science to enhance crop health. These include diagnostic approaches (pathogen and toxin detection and the monitoring of stress-related community ecology patterns) and intervention strategies (synthetic communities, microbiome-aware crop management practices, passaging microbiomes, and exploiting the vertical and lateral transmission of microbiomes to seeds). Developing and implementing these approaches remain challenging due, in part, to a shortage of long-term