RT Conference Proceedings
T1 Training soil microbiomes for sustainable agriculture
A1 Ossowicki, Adam
A1 Urquizu Ruiz, Jose Maria
A1 Carrion Bravo, Victor Jose
K1 Microbiomas - Congresos
K1 Agricultura sostenible - Congresos
AB Agriculture faces increasing pressure from climate change which significantly reduce crop yields. Simultaneously, conventional practices such as intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides escalate the environmental impact of food production. To meet the urgent need for sustainable yet productive agricultural systems, one promising approach is to leverage the natural functions of soil microbial communities. Beneficial microbes can improve plant performance conferring tolerance to (a)biotic stresses. However, exploiting these traits in field conditions remains a challenge due to the complexity and context-dependence of soil microbiomes. Our project addresses this challenge by developing a novel approach referred to as “training” — a strategy that applies selection pressures to steer microbial communities toward plant-beneficial functions. As a proof of concept, we applied microbial training to rhizosphere communities associated with tomato plants under saline conditions. The trained communities significantly enhanced plant tolerance to salt stress, as demonstrated by improved growth compared to untrained controls. These results show that microbiome training can effectively induce compositional and functional shifts in microbial communities, resulting in increased stress resilience in plants. This work highlights the potential of microbial community training as a sustainable strategy to improve crop health and resilience under environmental stress.
YR 2025
FD 2025-10-28
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/45615
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/45615
LA eng
NO Conference abstract - 6th PLANT microBIOME symposium 2025, open access
NO Funded by the European Union under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101106349
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 26 feb 2026