Microbial community composition of wheat between four land management strategies

Kristi Gdanetz MacCready and Frances Trail
Department of Plant Biology; Department of Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State Univeristy

Presented at the All Scientist Meeting (2015-04-15 to 2015-04-16 )

Recent research has indicated that the microbes associated with a crop can influence the crop’s susceptibility to disease. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the differences in rhizosphere microbiota between crops or land management strategies, but less information is known about the microbiota inhabiting the vegetative tissues of plants. The wheat fungal and bacterial phytobiome composition was assessed using plants from the Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research wheat/maize/soybean crop rotation site. Barcoded primers were used to differentiate between four land management strategies (conventional till, no-till, reduced nitrogen input, or organic), three growth stages (vegetative, flowering, senesced), and three tissue types (leaf, stem, or root). The outcome of this study will describe the tissue-specific communities associated with each plant developmental stage and across all land management strategies. We hope to combine these data with disease incidence data to determine if there is a disease-associated phytobiome.