Non Technical Summary
Modern agriculture is unsustainable. The bacteria that are associated with legume nodules and crops such as soybean can be a big contribution to solving this problem. Bacteria provide ecosystem services, which include the provisioning of nutrients to plants that would not otherwise be available. Managing the microbes correctly will significantly reduce the need forsynthetic nitrogen application (SyN) applications. SyN is a huge contributor to environmental problems, including the pollution of waterways and groundwater as well as increasing the amount of climate warming gases in the atmosphere. The research thus will help the global community better feed the world more sustainably. Microbes associated with crops and all types of plants can be viewed as serving the metaphorical equivalent of gut bacteria that allow the survival of animals such as humans. The research outcomes thus have huge implications for society.

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
102	0110	1070	40%
201	1419	1080	40%
203	1599	1100	10%
203	1599	1102	10%

Knowledge Area
102 - Soil, Plant, Water, Nutrient Relationships; 203 - Plant Biological Efficiency and Abiotic Stresses Affecting Plants; 201 - Plant Genome, Genetics, and Genetic Mechanisms;

Subject Of Investigation
1419 - Leguminous vegetables, general/other; 0110 - Soil; 1599 - Grain crops, general/other;

Field Of Science
1070 - Ecology; 1100 - Bacteriology; 1102 - Mycology; 1080 - Genetics;

Goals / Objectives
Modern agriculture is unsustainable. Bacteriomes of legume nodules and crops themselves are asolution to this problem by providing ecosystem services: nitrogen-fixation (NF), increasedproductivity, plant-available nitrogen, and increases in soil nitrogen and carbon sequestration.Bacterial NF is essentially the sole means of depositing atmospheric N2 into soils, and thus anatural way to alleviate the need for synthetic nitrogen application (SyN) to crops. This functionoff-sets expensive, energy-intensive, and environmentally detrimental practices of SyN. Increasingproduction of leguminous crops for food is fundamental to attaining sustainable farming and greateryields.Bacteriomes of legume nodules are now known to have noteworthy bacterial richness, with tens to1000's of strains, species, families and several phyla. This may help to account for the 40-60% ofunexplained variation in yield of model legumes, such as soybean. Nodule bacterial-type andlegume genotype and their interaction are without question critical to soybean productivity, butthere is little understanding how nodule bacteriomes determine legume phenotypes (traits). This is acrucial gap in knowledge of a critically important agronomic plant-microbial mutualism.The research will describe soil and nodule bacteriome and soil diversity changes across geographic locations/soils/climates andsoybean genotypes. The experiments test the hypothesis that variability in nodule bacteriomesdetermine crop-associated traits of 1) bacterial-fixed nitrogen and 2) yield. The research fitsprominently crosscutting mandates in a) plant health-production and b) natural resources and environment. The studyobjectives focus on host-microbiome interactions, host influences on microbiomes, and propertiesof bacteriomes determining host-related phenotypes.

Project Methods
The project will grow soybean cultivars and accessions with specific traits, in a chemically diverse array of soils. Microbiomes of soil, seed, and rhizosphere will be described to understand colonizers of soybean, persistor microbes of soybean, the potential for vertical (ecological) transfer of bacteria between seed and soybean habitats. Experiments will be conducted in the field and greenhouse. Genes associated with critical soybean interactions with soybean microbes will be determined. Genes and gene products will be extracted from microbes and nodules. Other supportive data on plant growth will also be described.Results (data) will be analyzed using microbiomic and transcriptomic methods and freely available software. The data and analysis methods will provide data that can be quantitatively and qualitativelyevaluated against hypotheses, and this will be used to evaluate the impacts of the science on the broader research, stakeholder, and societal communities.Science-based knowledge will be delivered to people through both formal and informal educational programs. This includes classroom instruction in the PI courses, development of small experiments for VT student learning activities, hosting high school, undergraduate students for lab research opportunities, and the reduction of graduate and post-doctoral scientists. Extension and outreach will be conducted at events across Virginia and surrounding states. The latter could be done at a field day event hosted by an AREC or presenting results and ideas to grower communities.Success in supporting learning activities for society and stakeholders, including students will be based on numbers of trained individuals and their productivity (research data and learning examples). Lecture and seminar type learning will be assessed by number of attendees and their feedback on standard questionnaires. Questionaires will be used to assess learning. Positve and negative feedback will be requested. Numerous other metric of success will be developed through on-line surveys and when possible one on one interactions. Milestones in the project will be used to provide the above learning activities and the above evaluation plan will be useful to determine the impact of the outcomes.