Designing a home for beneficial plant microbiomes

Abstract

The plant microbiome comprises a highly diverse community of saprotrophic, mutualistic, and pathogenic microbes that can affect plant growth and plant health. There is substantial interest to exploit beneficial members of plant microbiomes for new sustainable management strategies in crop production. However, poor survival and colonization of plant tissues by introduced microbial isolates as well as lack of expression of the plant growth-promoting or disease-suppressive traits at the right time and place are still major limitations for successful implementation of microbiomes in future agricultural practices and plant breeding programs. Similar to building a home for humans, we discuss different strategies of building a home for beneficial plant microbiomes, here referred to as the 'MicrobiHome'.