Facing Climate Change: Application of Microbial Biostimulants to Mitigate Stress in Horticultural Crops

Abstract

In the current scenario of rapidly evolving climate change, crop plants are more frequently subjected to stresses of both abiotic and biotic origin, including exposure to unpredictable and extreme climatic events, changes in plant physiology, growing season and phytosanitary hazard, and increased losses up to 30% and 50% in global agricultural productions. Plants coevolved with microbial symbionts, which are involved in major functions both at the ecosystem and plant level. The use of microbial biostimulants, by exploiting this symbiotic interaction, represents a sustainable strategy to increase plant performances and productivity, even under stresses due to climate changes. Microbial biostimulants include beneficial fungi, yeasts and eubacteria sharing the ability to improve plant nutrition, growth, productivity and stress tolerance. This work reports the current knowledge on microbial biostimulants and provides a critical review on their possible use to mitigate the biotic and abiotic stresses caused by climate changes. Currently, available products often provide a general amelioration of cultural conditions, but their action mechanisms are largely undetermined and their effects often unreliable. Future research may lead to more specifically targeted products, based on the characterization of plant-microbe and microbial community interactions.

WITHDRAWN: Genotype-Dependent Recruitment of the Strawberry Holobiome

“…However, the complexity and speci city of the patterns described in this work suggests that the idea to replace agro-chemicals by a few universal bene cial microorganisms is not realistic. Therefore, breeding programs should aim at the selection of high quality, climate-change resilient horticultural varieties with remarkable capacity to establish symbiotic relationships with useful microorganisms 8 . The inclusion of microbial markers in marker-assisted selection will represent a paradigm shift in plant breeding.…”

“…Furthermore, several bacterial species present the 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) deaminase activity. ACC deaminase degrades the ethylene precursor, thus, impairing its production in the plant tissues 8 .…”

“…AMF have been proven to affect plant hormonal balance and metabolism, indeed their bene cial effect has been observed both in below and above-ground organs 48 . Besides AMF, PGPB are also able to affect fruit quality, mainly by modulating the interplay between ethylene and auxin metabolisms and proving essential nutrients 8,61 . Altogether, these correlations suggest that bacteria and fungi contribute to the host's adaptation to growing conditions and, consequently, to fruit development.…”

“…Increasing evidence suggests that plants can actively recruit a bene cial micro ora to facilitate their adaptation to environmental conditions and changes 3,6,7 . However, further studies are needed to generalize this hypothesis, and enable practical applications, especially for horticultural perennial crops grown in cultural conditions 8 . To date, most experiments on plant microbiome have focused either on speci c model plants (i.e.…”

Achieving similar root microbiota composition in neighbouring plants through airborne signalling

“…The rhizobia-colonized lima bean plants showed that indole represents the agent of the repellent effects at jasmonic acid (JA)-induced VOCs [17]. PGPR, free-living root-associated bacteria, have been studied since the last century with the aim to increase plant growth and productivity [21,22]. Studies show that PGPR promote plant growth via bacterial determinants that induce the production and phosphate dissolution of plant hormones such as indole 3-acetic acid, gibberellic acid, JA, SA, and cytokinin [23][24][25].…”