Harnessing the power of the microbiome to establish world-leading Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) capacity

全面控制环境农业（TCEA）是一种新型的粮食生产系统，为传统的土壤农业提供了可持续和可扩展的替代方案。虽然对许多土壤疾病具有免疫力，但TCEA系统仍然容易受到植物病原体的影响，由于病原体（特别是水媒病原体）很容易传播并影响整个作物，因此爆发会造成灾难性的影响。此外，严格的TCEA清洁和消毒方案用于消除人类和植物病原体，也消除了有益微生物。这些有益微生物广泛存在于土壤中，但在TCEA的无土环境中往往被根除，人们越来越认识到它们在植物产量和质量方面发挥着至关重要的作用。Concert Bio正在为TCEA种植者开发一个微生物组优化平台，该平台将下一代基于测序的监测与环境和益生菌干预相结合，以最大限度地提高资源效率、低排放的TCEA作物产量，并通过提高生产率、可持续性和复原力，最大限度地减少运营成本浪费。我们的学术合作伙伴托马斯·贝尔教授是微生物生态学领域的世界级专家，他的研究重点是了解改变微生物群落并使其易受入侵的生态和进化过程。他也是伦敦帝国理工学院（Imperial College London）价值1000万英镑的利华休姆全息中心（Leverhulme Centre for the Holobiont）的创始人和主任。Innovate UK的资金支持Concert Bio和伦敦帝国理工学院之间建立新的正式合作研发关系，将Concert Bio在TCEA微生物组测序和生物计算建模方面的专业知识与Thomas Bell教授在研究微生物群落入侵方面的专业知识相结合。项目的及时性非常高，能源危机给TCEA种植者带来了进一步的压力，要求他们提高生产力、盈利能力和弹性，以应对不断上升的运营成本。英国在TCEA方面处于全球领先地位，受益于微生物组科学的强大学术研究基础，并且已经拥有几个世界上最大的TCEA农场。虽然我们将把已经开发的微生物组监测和优化服务扩展到绿叶蔬菜、微型蔬菜和草药，但我们选择生菜作为我们的目标研究作物，因为：(i)市场相关性：生菜约占全球TCEA市场的20%。（二）食品安全的严重性：生菜和其他绿叶蔬菜与世界各地多次爆发大肠杆菌有关，造成疾病和死亡。（三）水媒病原体风险高：根部疾病导致全球TCEA莴苣作物损失高达30%。（iv）种子到收获时间快：TCEA生菜得益于全年生长季节和20天的种子到收获时间，能够有效地优化益生菌干预。

Total controlled-environment agriculture (TCEA) is a novel food production system that offers a sustainable and scalable alternative to traditional soil-based agriculture. Although immune to many soil diseases, TCEA systems remain susceptible to plant pathogens, with outbreaks causing catastrophic impacts since pathogens (particularly water-borne pathogens) can spread easily and affect entire crops. In addition, rigorous TCEA cleaning and sanitising protocols employed to eliminate human and plant pathogens also eliminate beneficial microbes. These beneficial microbes, widespread in soil but often eradicated in the soilless context of TCEA, are increasingly recognised as performing a vital role in plant performance in terms of both yield and quality.Concert Bio is developing a microbiome optimisation platform for TCEA growers, which combines next-generation sequencing-based monitoring with environmental and probiotic interventions to maximise resource-efficient, low-emission TCEA crop production and minimise wasted operational costs through improving productivity, sustainability, and resilience. Our academic partner Professor Thomas Bell is a world expert in microbial ecology, whose research focuses on understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that modify microbial communities and make them susceptible to invasion. He is also the Founder and Director of the £10m Leverhulme Centre for the Holobiont at Imperial College London.Innovate UK funding supports the development of a new formal collaborative R&D relationship between Concert Bio and Imperial College London, combining Concert Bio's expertise in TCEA microbiome sequencing and biocomputational modelling with Professor Thomas Bell's expertise in studying microbial community invasions.The project timeliness is extremely high, with the energy crisis placing further pressure on TCEA growers to increase productivity, profitability, and resilience in the face of rising operational costs. The UK is uniquely placed to take a global leadership position in TCEA, benefitting from a strong academic research base in microbiome science and already home to several of the world's largest TCEA farms.Although we will expand the developed microbiome monitoring and optimisation service across leafy greens, microgreens, and herbs, we have chosen lettuce as our target study crop because of:(i) Market relevance: Lettuce accounts for approximately 20% of the global TCEA market.(ii) Food safety criticality: Lettuce and other leafy greens have been linked to multiple E. coli outbreaks worldwide, causing illness and deaths.(iii) High risk of water-borne pathogens: Root diseases cause global TCEA lettuce crop losses of up to 30%.(iv) Rapid seed-to-harvest time: TCEA lettuce benefits from year-round growing season and 20-day seed-to-harvest time, enabling efficient optimisation of probiotic interventions.