Harnessing the power of the microbiome to establish world-leading Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) capacity

全控环境农业（TCEA）是一种新型的粮食生产系统，为传统的土壤农业提供了可持续和可扩展的替代方案。虽然对许多土壤疾病免疫，但TCEA系统仍然容易受到植物病原体的影响，由于病原体（特别是水传播的病原体）可以很容易地传播并影响整个作物，因此爆发会造成灾难性的影响。此外，用于消除人类和植物病原体的严格TCEA清洁和消毒方案也消除了有益微生物。这些有益微生物广泛存在于土壤中，但在TCEA的无土环境中通常会被根除，越来越多的人认为它们在产量和质量方面对植物性能起着至关重要的作用。Concert Bio正在为TCEA种植者开发微生物组优化平台，该平台将下一代基于测序的监测与环境和益生菌干预相结合，以最大限度地提高资源效率，低排放TCEA作物生产，并通过提高生产力，可持续性和弹性来最大限度地减少浪费的运营成本。我们的学术合作伙伴教授托马斯贝尔是微生物生态学的世界专家，其研究重点是了解修改微生物群落并使其易于入侵的生态和进化过程。他还是伦敦帝国理工学院价值1000万英镑的Leverhulme Holobiont中心的创始人和主任。Innovate UK资助支持Concert Bio和伦敦帝国理工学院之间建立新的正式合作研发关系，将Concert Bio在TCEA微生物组测序和生物计算建模方面的专业知识与托马斯贝尔教授在研究微生物群落入侵方面的专业知识相结合。高，能源危机对TCEA种植者施加了进一步的压力，以提高生产力，盈利能力和弹性，面对不断上升的运营成本。英国在TCEA中处于全球领先地位，得益于微生物组科学的强大学术研究基础，并且已经拥有几个世界上最大的TCEA农场。尽管我们将在绿叶蔬菜，微绿叶蔬菜和草药中扩展已开发的微生物组监测和优化服务，但我们选择生菜作为我们的目标研究作物，因为：（i）市场相关性：Letterfly约占全球TCEA市场的20%。(ii)食品安全临界点：莴苣和其他绿叶蔬菜与多种大肠杆菌有关。大肠杆菌在世界范围内爆发，造成疾病和死亡。(iii)水源性病原体的高风险：根部疾病导致全球TCEA生菜作物损失高达30%。(iv)快速的播种到收获时间：TCEA生菜受益于全年生长季节和20天的播种到收获时间，能够有效优化益生菌干预。

Total controlled-environment agriculture (TCEA) is a novel food production system that offers a sustainable and scalable alternative to traditional soil-based agriculture. Although immune to many soil diseases, TCEA systems remain susceptible to plant pathogens, with outbreaks causing catastrophic impacts since pathogens (particularly water-borne pathogens) can spread easily and affect entire crops. In addition, rigorous TCEA cleaning and sanitising protocols employed to eliminate human and plant pathogens also eliminate beneficial microbes. These beneficial microbes, widespread in soil but often eradicated in the soilless context of TCEA, are increasingly recognised as performing a vital role in plant performance in terms of both yield and quality.Concert Bio is developing a microbiome optimisation platform for TCEA growers, which combines next-generation sequencing-based monitoring with environmental and probiotic interventions to maximise resource-efficient, low-emission TCEA crop production and minimise wasted operational costs through improving productivity, sustainability, and resilience. Our academic partner Professor Thomas Bell is a world expert in microbial ecology, whose research focuses on understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that modify microbial communities and make them susceptible to invasion. He is also the Founder and Director of the £10m Leverhulme Centre for the Holobiont at Imperial College London.Innovate UK funding supports the development of a new formal collaborative R&D relationship between Concert Bio and Imperial College London, combining Concert Bio's expertise in TCEA microbiome sequencing and biocomputational modelling with Professor Thomas Bell's expertise in studying microbial community invasions.The project timeliness is extremely high, with the energy crisis placing further pressure on TCEA growers to increase productivity, profitability, and resilience in the face of rising operational costs. The UK is uniquely placed to take a global leadership position in TCEA, benefitting from a strong academic research base in microbiome science and already home to several of the world's largest TCEA farms.Although we will expand the developed microbiome monitoring and optimisation service across leafy greens, microgreens, and herbs, we have chosen lettuce as our target study crop because of:(i) Market relevance: Lettuce accounts for approximately 20% of the global TCEA market.(ii) Food safety criticality: Lettuce and other leafy greens have been linked to multiple E. coli outbreaks worldwide, causing illness and deaths.(iii) High risk of water-borne pathogens: Root diseases cause global TCEA lettuce crop losses of up to 30%.(iv) Rapid seed-to-harvest time: TCEA lettuce benefits from year-round growing season and 20-day seed-to-harvest time, enabling efficient optimisation of probiotic interventions.