EXPLORATION OF THE MICROBIOME OF NATIVE PLANTS FOR PLANT GROWTH-PROMOTING MICROBES TO MITIGATE EFFECTS OF ABIOTIC STRESSES IN CROP PLANTS

The proposed project will investigate the rhizosphere and endosphere microbiome of the native plants of the Intermountain West Region of the US. The study will isolate, purify, and characterize these microbes and test them for plant growth promotion under abiotic stresses on grain, vegetable, and forage crops. The final goal is to develop biofertilizers and biostimulants to promote the growth and development of various crops under drought and salt stress. Many plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) have been characterized, and a few are successfully used as biofertilizers. The US. Intermountain West is rich in drought-tolerant native plants. Native plants have not been explored for their rhizosphere microbiome. Investigation of the rhizosphere microbiome of native plants may open a new chapter for using them as biofertilizers for sustainable agriculture under adverse conditions. In this study, we propose a complete metagenomic analysis of the rhizosphere and endosphere (microbes colonize inside the roots) microbiome of two native plants,Ceanothus velutinus(Snowbrush) andCercocarpus ledifolius(Mountain Mahogany), of the US. Intermountain West and halotolerant bacteria from the plants from the Great Salt Lake. The Great Salt Lake is rich in Halotolerant plants. We hypothesize that these plants have halotolerant bacteria in their rhizosphere and have the potential to mitigate the salinity stress in crop plants.Similarly, we hypothesize that above mentioned native plants harbor drought-tolerant bacteria that have the potential to impart drought tolerance to crop plants.?We propose to isolate, purify, and characterize microbes from these plants and plants from the Great Salt Lake. Investigate these microbiomes' ability to promote crop plants' growth and development under drought and salt stress in the greenhouse, and finally test them in fields of the grain crops wheat and maize, the vegetable crops onion and watermelon, and the forage crop alfalfa.Specific objectives:Establish the composition of microbial communities in the rhizosphere and endosphere of native plants -Ceanothus velutinus(Snowbrush) andCercocarpus ledifolius(Mountain Mahogany) and halotolerant bacteria from the plants of the Great Salt Lake by comparative metagenomics.Isolate, purify, and characterize rhizosphere bacteria of Snowbrush, Mountain Mahogany, and plants from the Great Salt Lake for plant growth-promoting activities.Establish and validate the plant growth-promoting ability of these bacterial isolates on Arabidopsis thaliana and conduct metatranscriptomics analysis to see the effect of bacteria on the plant's transcriptomics.Identify the plant growth-promoting bacteria by whole genome sequencing and evaluate the plant growth-promoting bacteria on maize, wheat, onion, watermelon, and alfalfa under normal, drought, and salt stress.An outline of the proposal with step-by-step objectives is depicted in Figure 1.