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

利用微生物组的力量建立世界领先的全面受控环境农业 (TCEA) 能力

• 批准号: 10075926
• 金额: $ 94.29万
• 依托单位: CONCERT BIO LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10075926
• 关键词: Harnessing; power; microbiome; establish; world

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.

完全控制环境农业(TCEA)是一种新型的粮食生产体系，它为传统的土基农业提供了一种可持续和可扩展的选择。尽管TCEA系统对许多土壤疾病免疫，但它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)很容易传播并影响整个作物，因此暴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的TCEA清洁和消毒方案也消除了有益的微生物。这些有益的微生物广泛存在于土壤中，但往往在无土的TCEA环境中被根除，它们越来越被认为在产量和质量方面对植物表现起着至关重要的作用。Concert Bio正在为TCEA种植者开发一个微生物组优化平台，该平台将基于下一代测序的监测与环境和益生菌干预相结合，通过提高生产率、可持续性和弹性，最大限度地提高资源高效、低排放的TCEA作物生产，并最大限度地减少浪费的运营成本。我们的学术伙伴Thomas Bell教授是微生物生态学的世界专家，他的研究重点是了解改变微生物群落并使其易于入侵的生态和进化过程。他也是伦敦帝国理工学院GB 10M Leverhulme Holobion中心的创始人和主任。创新英国资金支持Concert Bio和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Thomas Bell教授在研究微生物群落入侵方面的专业知识相结合。该项目的及时性极高，能源危机给TCEA种植者带来了进一步的压力，要求他们提高生产率、盈利能力和弹性，以应对不断上升的运营成本。英国在TCEA方面处于全球领先地位，得益于强大的微生物组科学学术研究基础，并且已经拥有世界上几个最大的TCEA农场。尽管我们将把开发的微生物组监测和优化服务扩展到绿叶蔬菜、微绿蔬菜和草药，但我们选择生菜作为我们的目标研究作物是因为：(I)市场相关性：生菜约占全球TCEA市场的20%。(Ii)食品安全关键：生菜和其他绿叶蔬菜与全球多起大肠杆菌爆发有关，(Iii)水传播病原体的高风险：根病导致全球TCEA生菜作物损失高达30%。(Iv)快速种子到收获时间：TCEA生菜受益于全年生长季节和20天的种子到收获时间，使益生菌干预措施得以高效优化。