Soil microbes could be the key to healthier, stronger plants
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EmailMSU researcher James Kremer and his colleagues in the labs of Sheng Yang He and James Tiedje are working to understand how plant microbes could be the key to reliable, high-yielding agriculture.
Michigan State University (MSU) researcher James Kremer and his colleagues in the labs of University Distinguished Professors and MSU AgBioResearch scientists Sheng Yang He and James Tiedje are working to understand how plant microbes – the millions of microorganisms that reside in soil and plants just as they do in the human gut – could be the key to reliable, high-yielding agriculture.
“The goal of our research is to unravel the complexity of the plant microbiome to understand its functions and benefits to plant health. Intelligent tweaking of the plant microbiome could give rise to constellations of microbes that robustly increase yield and protect against disease,” said Kremer, who presented his findings at the 2015 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
The naturally occurring and complex community of plant-associated microbes – called the plant microbiome – elicits immune responses, actively sensing and responding to microbe-specific molecules. To investigate how the plant microbiome functions, Kremer and his team used microbe-free seeds, sterile growth vessels and bottom-irrigated pots (FlowPots), to raise completely microbe-free plants rooted in a sterile potting mix.
“We seeded FlowPots with diverse microbial communities from various soils across North America and found that much like the microbes in our gut, the plant microbiome boosts plants’ ability to fight diseases,” said Kremer, who invented the FlowPot system and is now working to patent it.
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