Harnessing soil–microbe-plant interactions for sustainable wheat production

Wheat cultivation faces many emerging challenges including limited nutrient resources, and extreme events of biotic and abiotic stresses due to climate change.

The aim of this proposal is to use the beneficial fungus Clonostachys rosea to improve health and climatic resilience of wheat.

Microorganisms can play an important role in plant health promotion (PHP) and stress resilience by improving nutrient availability and acquisition, by modulating plant growth regulators and by suppressing plant pathogens.

We propose to i) identify C. rosea strains with higher PHP ability under biotic, and abiotic stress conditions – with focus on fusarium foot rot and head blight diseases, and drought stress, ii) identify wheat cultivars ideal for C. rosea application, iii) test the PHP efficacy of C. rosea under field conditions, and iv) investigate the mechanisms for high PHP activity by C. rosea.

Health promotion ability of 63 genome sequenced C. rosea strains are tested on several spring wheat cultivars grown in field soil under growth chamber condition. Then the efficacy of selected C. rosea strains with high PHP will be validated under field conditions.

We will combine approaches of microbiome, transcriptome and genome-wide association analysis to investigate the mechanisms behind PHP in C. rosea.

The findings from this proposal will show how C. rosea can enhance stress resilience in wheat, reduce application of fertilizers and fungicides and improve plant health in wheat production.