21EJP SOIL: Tuning the wheat root microbiome to improve soil health and optimize rhizosphere nitrogen cycling and availability

支持和改善农业土壤的肥力和健康对人类的生存至关重要。小麦种植和相关的农业做法，如施氮(N)肥料，影响到全球近2.2亿公顷的农业土壤。因此，调整小麦生产对土壤健康的影响的可能性将推动我们努力开发更可持续的农业方法，保护和增强土壤健康。小麦的根系特征与其结构和分泌物的释放有关，塑造了土壤和微生物群环境。这影响了土壤性质和微生物组功能，涉及生物多样性、土壤结构和向作物提供必需养分，这是土壤健康的关键方面。现代小麦品种是对地上性状(如产量)进行密集育种的结果，很少关注它们对根系特征和土壤过程的影响。这一缺陷导致迫切需要确定能够支持和改善土壤健康以及营养循环和提供食物等关键生态系统功能的地下特征。土壤健康强烈依赖于土壤-微生物-植物的相互作用。在专门用于小麦生产的农业土壤中，对微生物N循环的作物控制有可能在提供需要较低化肥投入的更可持续的农业方面发挥关键作用。培育能够改善土壤健康的作物，从而维持可供植物吸收的氮素物种的最佳平衡，这并不是育种者的目标，尽管可以获得好处。优化氮肥管理和减少氮素对环境的损失的战略可以显著促进联合国战略发展目标(SDGs)，处理更可持续的生态系统利用，阻止和扭转土地退化和生物多样性丧失(SDG15)，并提供负责任的生产(SDG12)和全球变暖缓解(SDG13)。总而言之，许愿根项目的主要目标是通过小麦的根部特征恢复和保持土壤健康。为此，我们的目标是：1)确定与根际微生物协会的功能和根系结构特征相关的关键性状；2)找到小麦中有利于土壤健康的基因、基因组区域或代谢途径；3)开发遗传工具，将这些有益的性状引入商业品种；4)开发土壤健康的预测模型。这些目标将为农民提供有利的品种，支持更可持续地利用土地，改善土壤微生物多样性、养分循环和结构。

Supporting and improving the fertility and health of agricultural soils is essential to the survival of humanity. The cultivation of wheat and associated agricultural practices such as application of nitrogen (N)-fertilizers impacts on nearly 220 million ha of agricultural soil globally. Therefore, the possibility of tuning the impact of wheat production on soil health will advance our efforts to develop more sustainable agricultural approaches, preserving and enhancing soil health.Wheat root traits linked to their architecture and the release of exudates shape the soil and microbiome environment. This impacts on soil properties and microbiome functions related to biodiversity, soil structure and provision of essential nutrients to crops, key aspects of soil health.Modern wheat varieties are the result of intensive breeding for above ground traits (e.g. yield) with little attention paid to their impact on root traits and on soil processes. This deficiency has created an urgent need to identify below ground traits that can support and improve soil health and key ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling and provision of food.Soil health strongly depends on soil-microbe-plant interactions. In agricultural soils dedicated to wheat production, crop control of microbial N cycling has the potential to play a crucial role in providing more sustainable farming that requires lower inputs of chemical fertilizer. A focus on breeding crops that can improve soil health, thus maintaining an optimized balance of N species available for plant uptake, has not been a target for breeders despite the benefits that can be reaped.Strategies to optimize the management of N fertilization and reduce N losses to the environment can significantly contribute to UN Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) dealing with more sustainable use of ecosystems and halting and reversing land degradation and biodiversity loss (SDG15) as well as providing responsible production (SDG12) and global warming mitigation (SDG13).To summarise, the main objective of the WISH-ROOTS project is to restore and and preserve soil health through wheat root traits. For this, we aim to: 1) identify key traits associated with functionality of microbial guilds in the rhizosphere and root system architectural traits; 2) find the genes, genomic regions or metabolic pathways in wheat that benefit soil health; 3) develop genetic tools for breeding to introduce these beneficial traits in commercial cultivars and 4) develop a predictive model for soil health. These aims will provide advantageous varieties for farmers that support a more sustainable use of land improving soil microbial biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and structure.