grain-microbiome
The grain microbiome refers to the diverse community of microorganisms—bacteria, fungi, and other microbes—that colonize cereal grain surfaces and interiors. Understanding these microbial communities is important for plant science because they influence grain development, nutritional quality, and disease resistance, while also affecting post-harvest storage and food safety. Research into grain-microbiome interactions helps reveal how plants and their associated microbes co-evolve and how agricultural practices shape microbial diversity in crop seeds.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-04-30
Soaking barley seeds before malting dramatically reshapes the bacteria living on the grain's surface: diversity collapses and fermentation-driving lactic acid bacteria take over within days. This gives brewers and food processors a clearer scientific handle on how pre-processing steps influence microbial quality.
Bacterial diversity on barley seeds dropped sharply over 8 days of soaking, with fermentative Firmicutes (especially Lactobacillales) becoming the dominant group across all four cultivars tested.
Functional analysis showed reduced metabolic breadth over time but a marked increase in fermentation- and nutrient-transport-related pathways, aligning microbial function with the needs of downstream processing.
Co-occurrence networks grew simpler and shifted toward negative (competitive) associations, while community assembly became increasingly governed by random dispersal rather than deterministic environmental filtering.
