Harnessing and integrating disease suppressive microbes and synthetic soils for sustainable, low input horticulture

英国园艺业目前为英国经济贡献了22亿英镑。虽然这种生产大部分在户外的田间进行，但高价值软果、西红柿和沙拉作物的园艺种植在玻璃或多隧道条件下进行，在这些条件下，与保护性生长相关的额外费用在经济上是可行的。2017年，948公顷的温室和多通道用于园艺生产，其中约75%用于蔬菜作物，25%用于水果。虽然温室和多管隧道能够延长作物的生长期，并能抵御极端天气，但它们可能成为害虫和病原体滋生的热点，需要昂贵的、对环境有害的化学控制和昂贵的卫生控制。这一点尤其重要，因为这些系统在生物学上是简单的，因此如果病原体进入系统，竞争排斥是有限的。事实上，尽管受保护园艺作物的价值同比增长，但总生产率自2015年达到峰值以来一直在下降。虽然这种下降的原因多样而复杂，但至少在一定程度上可归因于病虫害造成的损失。具体来说，园艺作物的细菌性疾病会对生产力造成毁灭性的影响，在最坏的情况下，会导致作物的完全损失。随着现有农药迅速失效或面临使用限制，迫切需要新的机制来控制覆盖园艺系统中的细菌性疾病，以保障未来的生产力。该项目的总体目标是开发一个多干预框架，通过利用植物自身免疫系统的疾病抑制能力及其与有益土壤微生物的相互作用，保护水果和蔬菜作物免受虫害和疾病的侵害，同时部署可持续的新型基质，增加园艺中疾病抑制土壤微生物的数量。主要目标是深入了解根系微生物组中植物有益微生物促进生长和抑制疾病的微生物功能，并在创新种植制度中利用这些知识来提高产量。我们将把重点放在番茄和放射根瘤菌生物变种1根垫病的病理系统作为一个易于处理和商业应用的模型。我们将制定一项综合战略，将基础研究的最新证据转化为有效的作物保护方法

The British horticultural industry currently contributes £2.2 billion to the UK economy. While the majority of this production occurs outdoors in fields, horticultural cultivation of high value soft fruits, tomatoes and salad crops takes place under glass or poly-tunnel conditions where the additional expenses associated with protected growth are economically viable. In 2017, 948 hectares of glasshouses and poly-tunnels were employed in horticultural production with around 75% dedicated to vegetable crops and 25% to fruit. While glasshouses and poly-tunnels afford extended growing periods and protection from extreme weather, they can become hot spots for pests and pathogens requiring expensive, and environmentally damaging, chemical control and expensive hygiene control. This is especially important given these systems are biologically simplistic and thus there is limited competitive exclusion should a pathogen enter the system. Indeed, although the value of protected horticultural crops has increased year-on-year, gross productivity has fallen since a peak in 2015. Although the reasons for this decline are varied and complex they are, at least in part, attributable to losses due to pests and diseases. Specifically, bacterial diseases of horticultural crops can have devastating effects on productivity and in the worst case, lead to the complete loss of the crop. With current pesticides rapidly becoming ineffective or facing constraints on their use, novel mechanisms for controlling bacterial diseases in covered horticultural systems are urgently required to safeguard future productivity. The overarching aim of this project is to develop a multi-intervention framework for the protection of fruit and vegetable crops against pests and diseases by exploiting the disease-suppressing capacity of the plant's own immune system and its interaction with beneficial soil microbes while deploying sustainable, novel substrates that enhance populations of disease suppressive soil microbes for horticulture.The principal objective is to obtain a deep understanding of the microbial functions through which plant-beneficial microbes in the root microbiome promote growth and suppress disease, and to exploit this knowledge in innovative cropping systems to enhance production. We will focus on the tomato and Rhizobium radiobacter biovar 1 root mat disease pathosystem as a tractable and commercially applicable model. We will develop an integrated strategy that translates the latest evidence from basic research into effective crop protection methods