Improving Yield and Tolerance to Environmental Stress in Tomatoes by Engineering the Soil Microbiome

通过改造土壤微生物组提高番茄的产量和对环境胁迫的耐受性

• 批准号: 556606-2020
• 负责人: Yergeau, Étienne
• 金额: $ 2.09万
• 依托单位: Institut national de la recherche scientifique
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Alliance Grants
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=721575
• 关键词: Improving; Yield; Tolerance; Environmental; Stress

Global food production is facing a number of challenges such as freshwater scarcity, shrinking arable land, and more frequent extreme weather events brought on by global warming. Some of these challenges could be alleviated by moving production of vegetables, such as tomatoes, from the field into greenhouses where environmental conditions can be controlled. However, when grown in greenhouses, tomatoes commonly suffer environmental stresses caused by temperature and humidity extremes, which lead to reduced plant growth and overall yields. The focus of this research is to enable tomatoes grown in greenhouses to better tolerate environmental stresses, and in doing so improve yields. To do so a newly emerging approach will be utilized that is centered on the interactions between plants and the naturally occurring microorganisms living on and within them, referred to as the plant "microbiome". Similar to probiotic supplement for the gut microbiome in humans, introducing specific microbes to the plant microbiome, known as a "bioinoculant", has been shown to improve plant growth rates and increase tolerance to environmental stresses. However, such studies have only been done under highly controlled conditions, and it is unknown if the same benefits would occur under commercial greenhouse conditions. With this in mind, this project seeks to determine if tolerance to environmental stresses and plant growth can be improved in tomatoes grown in commercial greenhouse conditions by introducing 13 microbial species recently isolated by the Yergeau lab at INRS-CAFSB, which, based on our preliminary data can improve growth in wheat seedlings. In addition, how these microbes are able to induce these improvements in plants will be investigated. These experiments will be performed within a pilot greenhouse provided by our industrial partner, Axter Agroscience Inc., a leading supplier of liquid fertilizers. The microbes that show the most promise will then be developed into commercial products by our industrial partner and distributed nationwide for use by Canadian tomato growers.

全球粮食生产正面临淡水短缺、耕地减少、全球变暖带来的极端天气事件更加频繁等一系列挑战。其中一些挑战可以通过将番茄等蔬菜的生产从田间转移到环境条件可控的温室中来缓解。然而，当番茄种植在温室里时，通常会受到极端温度和湿度造成的环境压力，这会导致植物生长和整体产量下降。这项研究的重点是使温室种植的西红柿更好地耐受环境压力，从而提高产量。要做到这一点，将利用一种新出现的方法，该方法以植物与生活在植物上和植物内部的自然发生的微生物之间的相互作用为中心，称为植物“微生物组”。与人类肠道微生物群的益生菌补充剂类似，向植物微生物群中引入特定的微生物被称为生物接种剂，已被证明可以提高植物的生长速度和对环境压力的耐受性。然而，这类研究仅在高度受控的条件下进行，目前尚不清楚在商业温室条件下是否会产生同样的好处。考虑到这一点，该项目试图通过引入INRS-CAFSB耶尔乔实验室最近分离的13种微生物来确定是否可以提高商业温室条件下种植的番茄对环境胁迫的耐受性和植物生长，根据我们的初步数据，这些微生物可以改善小麦幼苗的生长。此外，还将研究这些微生物是如何在植物中诱导这些改进的。这些实验将在我们的工业合作伙伴、领先的液体肥料供应商Axter农业科学公司提供的试验性温室中进行。最有希望的微生物将由我们的工业合作伙伴开发成商业产品，并在全国范围内分销，供加拿大番茄种植者使用。