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The importance of microbes to plant and soil health is increasingly recognised, now the world’s first Crop Microbiome Cryobank has been launched to provide a publicly available resource to support further research. The microbiome includes six major crop plants and a range of UK soil types.
Sustainable yield improvement through knowledge of microbes
A microbiome is a community of micro-organisms that live together in a particular ecosystem. In this case, it is those associated with the roots of six major crop plants and in unplanted bulk soil. A beneficial microbiome should result in sustainably produced healthy plants, less dependent on agrochemical inputs and yielding better-quality food.
Scientists from the UK’s foremost agricultural research institutes created the facility, which will safeguard future research and enable sustainable yield improvement for six food crops including barley, oats, faba bean, oil seed rape, sugar beet and wheat.
The Crop Microbiome Cryobank (UK-CMCB) will be hosted by CABI (Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International) and brings together the expertise of Rothamsted Research, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), James Hutton Institute and the John Innes Centre.
It uses state-of-the art cryo research techniques to preserve important crop microbiome samples obtained from different crops cultured in a range of UK soil types. The resource also includes living microbial material as well as genomic and metagenomic sequences (DNA) from the crop root environment.
First time complete crop microbiome collated
Dr Tim Mauchline, plant and soil microbiologist at Rothamsted Research, said: “The UK-CMCB will allow us to better understand the profile and function of microbes in our soils, which is important in advising farmers how to produce crops more sustainably.
Mauchline and his colleagues drew on Rothamsted’s extensive experience of soil microbiome research in farming systems for their contribution to the project.
He said: “This is the first time the root microbiome has been studied at such great scale for such an important range of crops. It will give us unique insights into how the soil microbiome interacts with different plants in a range of soil types and generate new microbial candidates for plant inoculation.”
All the resources were characterised using advanced DNA sequencing techniques. This allowed the scientists to discover what microbes – fungi, bacteria, archaea (single-celled microorganisms with structure like bacteria) and viruses – are present, in the root microbiome and improve understanding of their function and potential to enhance crop growth.
BioProtection for international benefit
CABI, formerly the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux, hosts a number of projects that address international agricultural and environmental issues. This includes the CABI BioProtection Portal, which is a global resource for natural, non-toxic biocontrol and biopesticide products, and the development of a fungi collection of 28,000 samples, that is now housed at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.
Dr Matthew Ryan, Research Lead, Biological Resources at CABI, said: “We are delighted that the construction of the UK Crop Microbiome Cryobank has now been completed.
“It is the first synchronised resource covering the total microbiome of a variety of crops in standardised soil types, supported by bioinformatics, microbiologists, plant health experts and world class storage facilities.
“As part of the work, we also looked at the utility of the UK-CMCB for the isolation of plant growth promoting bacteria and synthetic community construction.”
The UK Crop Microbiome CryoBank (UK-CMCB) project will provide a comprehensive bank of cultures, resources and information to help facilitate research into optimizing plant yields using a sustainable agricultural approach.
More information about the UK Crop Microbiome CryoBank
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