MICROBIAL INTERVENTIONS FOR ENHANCED CROP PRODUCTIVITY

The goals of this project are to: 1) isolate endophytic microbes from healthy field-grown tubers and 2) assess their effects on potato propagation in the context of seed potato production practices.Specific objectives and sub-objectives within this project are:Isolate potato endophytic bacteria from healthy field-grown potato tubers and demonstrate their benefits when applied to micropropagated potato plantlets.Determine the variety specificity of tuber endophytic microbes harvested by culture dependent and culture independent methods.Assess the impact of endophyte applications made to tissue culture plantlets in subsequentgenerations using sequence-based microbiome analysis techniques.Determine the effect of endophytic microbial community application on susceptibility of potato plantlets toDickeya dianthicola, an agronomically significant bacterial pathogen of potato.Characterize the response of potato plantlets bacterized with endophytic communities isolated from field-grown tubers to inoculation withD. dianthicola.Identify endophytic microbes associated with potato response toD. dianthicolausing microbiome analysis of to compare the microbial communities of bacterized plants with and without application ofD. dianthicola.