Exploiting the potential of genotype microbiome interactions to promote sustainable soil health in southern Africa

玉米是南部非洲最重要的谷类作物，但面对干旱发生率和严重程度的增加以及土壤养分供应不足，如果没有新的管理措施，预计已经很低的产量将进一步下降。至关重要的是，必须制定新的办法，以确保粮食安全，并帮助减轻小农的贫困。培育具有更强耐旱性和更强吸收氮能力的新玉米品种有望改变这些种植系统，但首先我们需要了解这些作物植物如何与土壤，土壤中的微生物相互作用，以及如何与管理相互作用，从而为作物生产带来好处，这将有助于确保粮食安全。目的和目标我们的研究旨在解决考虑作物遗传组成（基因型）、土壤微生物及其所进行的过程之间相互作用的性质是否为未来的玉米育种计划提供了一种可行的方法，以帮助确保产量稳定性和对低营养的适应能力可用性和南部非洲的干旱。我们将首先在受控环境条件下，从CIMMYT种质库中详细筛选各种玉米基因型，以确定对土壤氮和碳过程影响的变化程度。这一筛选将包括CIMMYT确定的耐低土壤氮或干旱胁迫条件的品种。从这个屏幕中，我们将选择线进行更详细的研究，并看看它们如何塑造进行这些过程的微生物种群，并了解支持可持续生产和土壤健康的植物-土壤相互作用。然后，我们将选择六个玉米品系，以建立相互作用的一致性，建立在受控环境下，在津巴布韦CIMMYT农民网络的田间条件下。了解这些相互作用将告诉我们，是否有可能使用不同的玉米基因型来影响土壤微生物群落，或未来育种的特定特征，以促进更有效的氮素利用，并赋予更大的抗旱能力。潜在的应用和效益展示玉米变异对土壤微生物群和过程的影响，是制定利用这些性状与可持续管理实践相结合提高作物产量的战略的重要一步。我们预计，该基金会将在未来制定一个框架，为南部非洲未来的玉米育种计划或品种选择提供信息，该框架基于作物在可持续养分获取方面增强和利用土壤健康的能力，从而有助于确保更可靠的产量和更大的适应能力不断变化的环境条件。

ContextMaize is the most important cereal crop in southern Africa but without new management practices in the face of increasing occurrence and severity of drought and low soil nutrient availability, yields which are already low are predicted to further decline. It is critical that new approaches are developed to ensure food security, and help alleviate poverty of smallholder farmers. Breeding for new maize cultivars with greater tolerance to drought and enhanced ability to take up nitrogen holds much promise to transform these cropping systems, but first we need to understand how these crop plants interact with the soil, the microorganisms in the soil, and with management to confer benefits for crop production, that will help ensure food security. Aims and objectivesOur research aims to address whether considering the nature of interactions between crop genetic make-up (genotype), soil microorganisms and the processes they undertake provides a viable approach for future maize breeding programmes to help ensure yield stability and resilience to low nutrient availability and drought in southern Africa. We will firstly undertake, under controlled environment conditions, a detailed screening of a wide range of maize genotypes from the CIMMYT germplasm collection to establish the extent of variation in influence on soil nitrogen and carbon processes. This screen will include varieties characterised by CIMMYT as being tolerant of low soil nitrogen or drought stress conditions. From this screen we will select lines to examine in more detail, and look at how they shape the microbial populations that undertake these processes, and gain understanding of plant-soil interactions underpinning sustainable production and soil health. We will then select six maize lines to establish consistency of interactions, established in controlled environments, under field conditions across CIMMYT farmer's network in Zimbabwe. Understanding these interactions will tell us if there is potential in using different maize genotypes to influence the soil microbial community, or future breeding for particular characteristics, to promote more effective nitrogen use and to confer greater resilience to drought. Potential applications and benefitsDemonstrating variation of maize for impacts on soil microbiota and processes is an essential step to developing strategies to exploit these traits for enhancing crop yields in combination with sustainable management practices. We anticipate that this foundation award will lead in the future to the development of a framework to inform future maize breeding initiatives or cultivar selection for southern Africa, that is based on the ability of crops to enhance and capitalise on soil health in terms of sustainable nutrient acquisition thereby helping ensure more reliable yields and greater resilience to changing environmental conditions.