Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Understanding agricultural microbial communities has the potential to transform agricultural production systems, human well-being, and environmental health. Although significant efforts have been made to understand the processes that determine microbiome structure and activity, there remain considerable hurdles to achieving directed microbiome manipulation in an agricultural setting. We aim to develop a mechanistic understanding of the microbiome associated with mushroom development, which we term the mushroom devome (developmental microbiome), as well as disease suppression. Preliminary research from our group has demonstrated that using either antibiotics or serial passaging, we were able to modify the mushroom substrate microbiome in a way that affects the timing of mushroom development, amount of harvested mushroom caps, as well as disease suppression toward bacterial blotch and green mold. We will take advantage of the one-of-its-kind Penn State Mushroom Research Center facility to conduct this groundbreaking research that will result in a deeper understanding of the microbial members and processes that drive mushroom development, with a potential for producing more sustainable agricultural output.
Animal Health Component
10%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
90%
Applied
10%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Our overarching goal is to advance the field of agricultural microbiomes by understanding their participation in mushroom development and disease outcomes. This goal will be achieved by 1. Identifying which organisms and biochemicals contribute toward mushroom development and disease suppression, 2. Establish how to effectively develop disease-suppressive communities in complex substrate environments, and 3. Utilize or manipulate organisms and biochemical pathways to greater contributions in disease suppression and enhanced development.
Project Methods
We will test two distinct methodological approaches, the passaging of native communities from the substrates and community alteration by the application of biocides to remove or accentuate microbial fractions important to the mushroom growth and disease suppression phenotypes. In addition, two distinct pathogen models will be tested, Trichoderma aggressivum f. aggressivum (green mold disease) and Pseudomonas tolaasii (blotch disease) which are the major fungal and bacterial diseases in US mushroom farms. These approaches will be evaluated through three specific aims. Aim 1 establishing the reproducibility of our community's alteration by passaging and by antibiotics applications. Aim 2 tests whether passaged communities or chemically altered communities exhibit general or specific disease suppression, as well as whether the suppression depends on pathogen type (fungal or bacterial). Aim 3 the combination of high-throughput sequencing, high-throughput microbial culturing, and proteomics followed by empirical testing of predictions of communities and pathways needed for development.