High‐resolution phenotyping of sorghum genotypic and phenotypic responses to low nitrogen and synthetic microbial communities

Abstract

Much effort has been placed on developing microbial inoculants to replace or supplement fertilizers to improve crop productivity and environmental sustainability. However, many studies ignore the dynamics of plant-microbe interactions and the genotypic specificity of the host plant on the outcome of microbial inoculation. Thus, it is important to study temporal plant responses to inoculation in multiple genotypes within a single species. With the implementation of high-throughput phenotyping, the dynamics of biomass and nitrogen (N) accumulation of four sorghum genotypes with contrasting N-use efficiency were monitored upon the inoculation with synthetic microbial communities (SynComs) under high and low-N. Five SynComs comprising bacteria isolated from field grown sorghum were designed based on the overall phylar composition of bacteria and the enriched host compartment determined from a field-based culture independent study of the sorghum microbiome. We demonstrated that the growth response of sorghum to SynCom inoculation is genotype-specific and dependent on plant N status. The sorghum genotypes that were N-use inefficient were more susceptible to the colonization from a diverse set of inoculated bacteria as compared to the N-use efficient lines especially under low-N. By integrating high-throughput phenotyping with sequencing data, our findings highlight the roles of host genotype and plant nutritional status in determining colonization by bacterial synthetic communities.

Identification of beneficial and detrimental bacteria that impact sorghum responses to drought using multi-scale and multi-system microbiome comparisons

“…1B). These results may indicate some amount of host specificity (Chai et al 2021) or simply reflect differences in the experimental assays used for Arabidopsis and sorghum. Regardless, these assays pointed to Arthrobacter and Variovorax as being particularly impactful on sorghum roots, similar to what was recently reported for Arabidopsis (Finkel et al 2020).…”

Assessment of Bacterial Inoculant Delivery Methods for Cereal Crops

“…and C. rhizosphaerae isolated from soil where sorghum was growing, were used for inoculation in this study. These bacteria have been used in a previous study (Chai et al, 2021). The draft genome sequences and gene annotations of these bacteria are available through the IMG portal at the Joint Genome Institute under the taxon ID 2818991442, 2818991454, and 2818991462, for C. pinensis, C. rhizosphaerae, and Terrabacter sp., respectively.…”

“…Three bacteria isolated from field-grown sorghum were used in this study (Chai et al, 2021), with Chitinophaga pinensis (Gram-negative) originating from the root endosphere while Caulobacter rhizosphaerae (Gram-negative) and Terrabacter sp. (Gram-positive) were from the soil.…”

Modulating Drought Stress Response of Maize by a Synthetic Bacterial Community

“…However, genetically encoded water usage traits alone may not be sufficient to make plants better adapt to water restriction and high temperature conditions. Microbial communities associated with plant roots, stems and leaves have also been shown to play a fundamental role in shaping plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses and modulating plant phenotypic plasticity ( Compant et al, 2019 ; Vannier et al, 2019 ; Beirinckx et al, 2020 ; Chai et al, 2021 ).…”