PubMed · 2026-05-30
Researchers mapped the bacteria and fungi living in garlic's soil, roots, and leaves across four major growing regions in China, finding that certain bacteria—especially Pseudomonas and Flavobacterium in roots—naturally suppress the disease-causing fungi that thrive under long-term garlic monoculture.
Microbial community composition was driven more by plant compartment (soil vs. roots vs. leaves) than by geographic growing region across four major garlic-producing areas in China.
Bacterial leaf colonizers traced back primarily to root endosphere, while fungal leaf colonizers appeared to arrive directly from rhizosphere soil—two distinct immigration routes in the same plant.
Network analysis identified Pseudomonas- and Flavobacterium-rich bacterial modules in roots that were negatively correlated with pathogen abundance, and cross-kingdom keystone pathogens (Verticillium, Fusarium) were suppressed by bacterial taxa Lysinimonas and Microbacterium.
