Enhancing the beneficial root microbiome in canola

草原省份拥有加拿大81%的耕地。油菜籽在加拿大农业中的重要性仅次于小麦。当土地用于农业生产时，土壤肥力迅速下降，因为作物从土壤中吸取养分，并通过土壤沥滤流失。肥料用于减轻这种养分流失，并保持或增加作物年产量。然而，作物吸收肥料的效率不到60%。改善化肥的使用对于养活世界、提供粮食安全、同时保护环境和确保可持续利用不可再生资源至关重要。作物养分吸收在很大程度上由根系和土壤微生物控制，因此管理农田微生物可以提高养分利用效率和作物产量。该项目旨在评估油菜核心根微生物组组成的一致性和可变性。我们需要验证可靠的微生物分类群列表，即始终存在于卡诺拉核心根微生物组中并丰富的那些分类群列表。同时，我们还将确定最有利于在油菜和其他轮作作物中建立有益的根系微生物组的作物轮作系统。通过两个实地实验，我们计划通过解决一系列四个具体目标来实现这些目标，这些目标是：（i）描述在棕壤和黑土上受不同轮作系统和时间影响的油菜根微生物组，（ii）通过量化参与生物固氮、硝化、和反硝化作用，（iii）确定根微生物组分类概况和分类群有关的有效氮利用的油菜作物，（iv）评价根微生物组的潜力，以增加非生物胁迫和病原体的压力油菜的耐受性。该提案将产生对卡诺拉根微生物组核心成员身份的了解，这将转化为卡诺拉生产可持续集约化的第一步，同时提高产量并减少环境足迹。

The Prairie provinces host 81% of Canada's cropland. Canola is second in importance for Canadian agriculture after wheat. When land is used for agricultural production, soil fertility declines rapidly, since nutrients are extracted from the soil by crops and lost through soil leaching. Fertilizers are used to mitigate this nutrient loss, and to maintain or increase annual crop yields. However, the efficiency of fertilizer assimilation by crops is less than 60%. Improving fertilizer's use is critical to feed the world, and to provide food security while protecting the environment and ensuring sustainable use of non-renewable resources. Crop nutrient acquisition is largely controlled by the root and soil microbiomes, so managing microbes in cropland can improve nutrient use efficiency and crop yield. This project aims to assess the consistency and variability in the composition of the canola core root microbiome. We need to validate a lists of the reliable microbial taxa, i.e. the list of those taxa that are always present and abundant in canola core root microbiome. At the same time, we will also determine the crop rotation systems best favoring the establishment of a beneficial root microbiome in canola and in other rotation crops. Using two field experiments, we plan to reach these goals by addressing a series of four specific objectives, which are: (i) to describe the canola root microbiome as influenced by different rotation systems and time, on a Brown and a Black soil, (ii) assess the efficiency of N cycling in the canola rhizosphere by quantifying the expression of genes involved in the processes of biological N2-fixation, nitrification, and denitrification, (iii) identify the root microbiome taxonomic profiles and taxa related to efficient nitrogen use by canola crops, (iv) evaluate the potential of the root microbiome to increase the tolerance of canola to abiotic stress and pathogen pressure. This proposal will generate knowledge of the identity of canola root microbiome core members that will translate into the first step toward the sustainable intensification of canola production while increasing its yield and reducing the environment footprint.