Enhancing the beneficial root microbiome in canola

草原省份拥有加拿大81%的农田。油菜籽对加拿大农业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，因为养分被作物从土壤中提取出来，并通过土壤淋失而流失。化肥用于减轻这种养分损失，并维持或增加作物的年产量。然而，作物对肥料的吸收效率不足60%。改善肥料的使用对于养活世界、在保护环境和确保可持续利用不可再生资源的同时提供粮食安全至关重要。作物养分获取在很大程度上受根系和土壤微生物组的控制，因此对农田微生物进行管理可以提高养分利用效率和作物产量。本项目旨在评估油菜籽核心根微生物组组成的一致性和可变性。我们需要验证一个可靠的微生物类群列表，即那些在油菜核心根微生物群中始终存在且丰富的类群列表。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根系微生物群的作物轮作制度。通过两次实地实验，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)在棕土和黑土上描述受不同轮作制度和时间影响的油菜籽根微生物组；（ii）通过量化参与生物固氮、硝化和反硝化过程的基因表达，评估油菜籽根际氮循环的效率；（iii）确定与油菜籽作物有效利用氮有关的根微生物组分类概况和分类群；（iv）评估根部微生物组增加油菜对非生物胁迫和病原体压力的耐受性的潜力。该提案将产生油菜籽根微生物组核心成员身份的知识，这将转化为油菜籽生产可持续集约化的第一步，同时提高其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.