Microplastics in the rhizosphere: unraveling plant-microbe-soil interactions and consequences for crop resilience.
Saeed T, Khan TA, Yusuf M, Bajguz A
Soil Health
That black plastic mulch you laid down last season, or the compost you bought in bags, may be steadily seeding your garden beds with microplastics that quietly undermine the fungal partners your tomatoes and perennials rely on to absorb water and nutrients.
Tiny plastic fragments — too small to see but everywhere in farm and garden soil — are building up and causing real problems for plants and the microbes they live with underground. They can slow seeds from sprouting, stunt roots, and kill off the helpful fungi and bacteria that plants need to thrive. Scientists are still working out exactly how bad the damage is and how to measure it reliably, but the picture so far is concerning.
Key Findings
Microplastics enter garden and farm soils through plastic mulch films, treated sewage used as fertilizer, irrigation with wastewater, compost, and even particles falling from the air.
In most cases microplastics harm plants — delaying germination, reducing growth, impairing photosynthesis, and blocking nutrient uptake — though at very low concentrations they occasionally increase root biomass by improving soil aeration and water retention.
Microplastics shift soil microbial communities in damaging ways: reducing populations of beneficial microbes, promoting pathogens, disrupting enzyme activity, and degrading mycorrhizal (root-fungus) partnerships that are critical to soil fertility.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Tiny plastic particles now found throughout farm soils are harming crops in multiple ways — slowing germination, stunting growth, and disrupting the beneficial soil microbes plants depend on. This review synthesizes what we know and flags how much we still don't.
Abstract Preview
Microplastics (MPs), plastic particles smaller than 5 mm, are increasingly recognized as pervasive pollutants in terrestrial ecosystems, especially agricultural soils, which serve as long-term sink...
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