Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
408 Old Main
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802-1505
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Effectively managing plant microbial diseases continues to be an important priority worldwide toensure an adequate supply of safe and nutritious food. Historically, chemical controls, such asantibiotics or fixed copper compounds, have been heavily relied upon to manage foliar bacterialdiseases. However, sustained use of a chemical controls has resulted in the emergence of resistanceto multiple chemical agents in pathogen population, thus negating their effectiveness. Biologicalcontrols, where a live organism or product derived from a live organism is applied, have been usedas alternatives to chemical antimicrobials, however, biocontrols typically exhibit highlyinconsistent results from region to region and between growing seasons, which has limited theirpotential as reliable disease management options. The proposed research will investigate thepotential for developing a whole microbial community-based approach to manage crop foliardiseases. This research seeks to translate our understanding of naturally occurring suppressive soils,which are able to reduce the impacts of soil-borne pathogens, into the phyllosphere environment.Preliminary data from our group suggests this is possible. Specifically, this research will test 1)whether suppressive communities can be developed for two distinct bacterial pathogens that infecttomato foliar tissues tomato, 2) how ecological conditions affect the emergence and strength ofthese communities, 3) how specific the suppression is for each community, and 4) which specificmicrobial taxa contribute to disease suppression. This research has the potential to improve ourability to control foliar plant diseases using an environmentally sustainable approach.
Animal Health Component
25%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
75%
Applied
25%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Aim 1: Determine if suppressive communities can be developed for bacterial speck and bacterial spot of tomato, as well as how initial community diversity affects suppression dynamics.Aim 2: Assess how disease suppressive communities interact with common agricultural practices, such as application of chemical pesticides.Aim 3: Identify microbial taxa enriched within suppressive communities and assess their ability to recapitulate disease suppression.
Project Methods
Microbial community acquisition, inoculation, passaging, and assessment of community effect on disease outcome will be performed as previously described (Ehau-Taumaunu and Hockett, Phytobiomes Journal, 2022). Microbial community taxanomic and organismal diversity will be modified by altering the number of independent sources for the initial community and size exclusion filtration, respectively. The effect of chemical pesticide application will be assessed by applying each pesticide according to the manufacturer specifications. Pathogen antagonist populations will be identified using both standard amplicon and metagenomic sequencing and analysis approaches. Once identified, standard and high throughput culturing techniques will be used to isolate fungi, bacteria, and bacteriophage that will be tested using standard techniques for disease suppression against the target pathogens. Outputs from this work will be evaluated for success through: publication of primary and reveiw scientific papers, development of multiple (>2) passaged disease suppressive communities that are storable and recoverable, and development of multiple (>2) disease suppressive synthetic communities that are derived from the passaged communities, but which can be precisely formulated.