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

植物组织内的内生菌可以为寄主提供多种益处，包括缓冲气候冲击（如干旱、热应激）或虫害和病原体爆发。内生菌的使用还可以解决使用“传统”方法难以管理的问题，例如农药耐药性的积累和/或减少合成农药使用的社会政治压力。它们可以提高植物资源利用（如养分、水）的整体效率，使开发更有效和环境可持续的新生产系统成为可能（例如，通过减少肥料浪费、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，为解决迄今为止整个人类世发生的食品质量下降提供了一种手段。内生菌代表了目前“生物农药/生物刺激剂”的重大进展，通过放置在植物组织内，提供了一种稳定环境敏感的有益生物作物投入的手段。在体内将内生菌引入农作物是一项挑战，但纽卡斯尔大学已经开发出基于聚合物的技术，并通过凯斯的合作者Nutriss进行了商业化。这使得在某些热带作物中探索内共生体应用的潜力，为在温度生产系统中工作铺平了道路。目前的项目将探索内生菌的应用，以管理温带作物微生物组，以适应气候和与人类世相适应的农业，将纽卡斯尔大学的植物生长和害虫/病原体反应的实验室/温室实验与诺森比亚大学通过生化分析收获的作物材料的营养特征相结合。

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.