The potential of endophyte application to manage the crop microbiome for climate resilient and Anthropocene-alligned farming

植物组织中的内生菌可以为寄主提供多种好处，包括缓冲气候冲击(如干旱、热应激)或病虫害和病原体的爆发。使用内生菌还可以解决使用“常规”方法难以管理的问题，例如建立杀虫剂抗性和/或减少合成杀虫剂使用的社会政治压力。它们可以提高植物资源利用的整体效率(例如养分、水)，从而能够开发效率更高、环境更可持续的新生产系统(例如通过减少化肥浪费、污染物和温室气体排放)。内生菌还可以提高谷物、水果和植物组织的营养价值，提供一种手段来解决迄今在整个人类世发生的食物质量下降问题。植物内生菌代表了当前“生物杀虫剂/生物刺激剂”的一个重大进展，它提供了一种通过放置在植物组织中来稳定对环境敏感的有益生物作物投入的方法。在体内将内生菌引入农作物是具有挑战性的，但通过纽卡斯尔大学已经开发的基于聚合物的技术已经克服了这一点，并通过CASE的合作者纽崔斯公司进行了商业化。这使得内生菌在某些热带作物中的应用潜力得以探索，为温度生产系统的工作铺平了道路。目前的项目将探索内生植物在管理温带作物微生物群方面的应用，以适应气候变化和适应人类世的农业，将纽卡斯尔大学的实验室/温室植物生长和病虫害/病原体反应实验与诺森比亚大学通过生化分析对收获的作物材料进行营养分析相结合。

Endophytes within plant tissues can provide multiple benefits to their hosts, including buffering against climate shocks (e.g. drought, heat stress) or pest and pathogen outbreaks. Use of endophytes can also address problems that are difficult to manage using 'conventional' approaches, such as the build up of pesticide resistance and/or socio-political pressures to reduce synthetic pesticide use. They can enhance the overall efficiency of plant resource use (e.g. nutrients, water), enabling the development of new production systems that are more efficient and environmentally sustainable (e.g. through reduced fertiliser wastage, pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions). Endophytes can also enhance the nutritional value of grain, fruit and plant tissues, providing a means to address declines in food quality that have occurred throughout the Anthropocene to date. Endophytes represent a major progression from current' biopesticides/bio stimulants' by offering a means to stabilise environmentally-sensitive beneficial biological crop inputs through placement within the plant tissue. In vivo introduction of endophytes to crop plants is challenging, but has been overcome through polymer based technologies already developed at Newcastle University and commercialised through CASE collaborators, Nutriss. This has enabled the potential of endosymbiont application to be explored in certain tropical crops, paving the way for work in temperature production systems. The current project will explore endophyte application to manage temperate crop microbiomes for climate resilient and Anthropocene-aligned farming, combining laboratory/glasshouse experiments on plant growth and pest/pathogen responses at Newcastle University with nutritional profiling of harvested crop material through biochemical analysis at Northumbria University.