Synergistically promoting plant health by harnessing synthetic microbial communities and prebiotics

• Main Authors: Jianfeng Du, Yang Li, Saif- Ur-Rehman, Irum Mukhtar, Ziyi Yin, Hansong Dong, Hongfeng Wang, Xiaoying Zhang, Zheng Gao, Xiangyu Zhao, Xiufang Xin, Xinhua Ding
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-08-01
• Series: iScience
• Subjects: Earth sciences; Biogeochemistry; Microbiology; Plant biology
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221008865

Summary: Soil-borne diseases cause serious economic losses in agriculture. Managing diseases with microbial preparations is an excellent approach to soil-borne disease prevention. However, microbial preparations often exhibit unstable effects, limiting their large-scale application. This review introduces and summarizes disease-suppressive soils, the relationship between carbon sources and the microbial community, and the application of human microbial preparation concepts to plant microbial preparations. We also propose an innovative synthetic microbial community assembly strategy with synergistic prebiotics to promote healthy plant growth and resistance to disease. In this review, a new approach is proposed to improve traditional microbial preparations; provide a better understanding of the relationships among carbon sources, beneficial microorganisms, and plants; and lay a theoretical foundation for developing new microbial preparations.