Optimizing Tomato Plant Growth With Microbes

By Akifumi Sugiyama

Plants are home to a diverse array of microorganisms that support their growth and help them adapt to environmental stress—of which there has been an abundance lately. High temperatures and drought caused by human-induced climate change have led to reduced crop yields and the use of biofertilizers such as rhizosphere microorganisms, which help plants absorb nutrients and increase their resistance to disease and stress.

Yet individual microorganisms have difficulty sustaining themselves in crops and remaining functional in the fluctuating environment of an agricultural field. This is where microbial communities can help.

A recent approach involves creating defined microbial communities—DMCs—by combining multiple microorganisms, which in turn influence each other and can thereby strengthen their resilience.

However, the composition and function of such a community change depending on plant-specialized metabolites and environmental conditions, making them impractical to use in conventional trial-and-error experiments aimed at finding optimal microbial communities from among a vast number of combinations.

This motivated a team of researchers from Kyoto University, with help from colleagues at Tohoku University and RIKEN, to integrate microorganism data and establish a rational, predictable method for designing DMCs. The team chose the humble tomato as its plant subject. The study is published in The ISME Journal.