Plant Disease Management: Leveraging on the Plant-Microbe-Soil Interface in the Biorational Use of Organic Amendments

Abstract

Agriculture is faced with many challenges including loss of biodiversity, chemical contamination of soils, and plant pests and diseases, all of which can directly compromise plant productivity and health. In addition, inadequate agricultural practices which characterize conventional farming play a contributory role in the disruption of the plant-microbe and soil-plant interactions. This review discusses the role of organic amendments in the restoration of soil health and plant disease management. While the use of organic amendments in agriculture is not new, there is a lack of knowledge regarding its safe and proper deployment. Hence, a biorational approach of organic amendment use to achieve sustainable agricultural practices entails the deployment of botanicals, microbial pesticides, and organic minerals as organic amendments for attaining plant fitness and disease suppression. Here, the focus is on the rhizosphere microbial communities. The role of organic amendments in stimulating beneficial microbe quorum formation related to the host-plant-pathogen interactions, and its role in facilitating induced systemic resistance and systemic-acquired resistance against diseases was evaluated. Organic amendments serve as soil conditioners, and their mechanism of action needs to be further elaborated to ensure food safety.

Efforts towards overcoming drought stress in crops: Revisiting the mechanisms employed by plant growth-promoting bacteria

“…Plant-growth-promoting bacteria also have several action mechanisms, such as siderophore production, ACC deaminase activity, excretion of cell wall degrading enzymes, quorum quenching, and antibiotics which assures induced systemic tolerance (IST) and induced systemic resistance (ISR) in plants to both biotic and abiotic stressors (Olanrewaju et al, 2017;Fadiji and Babalola, 2020a;Akanmu et al, 2021;Sarkar and Rakshit, 2021). Agrobacterium, Bacillus, Bradyrhizobium, Burkholderia, Caulobacter, Erwinia, Pseudomonas, and Rhizobium are among the well-studied PGPB (De Souza Vandenberghe et al, 2017).…”

Efficacy of Biorational Products for Managing Diseases of Tomato in Greenhouse Production

“…A relatively new approach to disease control in the region is the use of biorational products. Biorational products are low-environmental-impact products for use in agriculture [6][7][8]. They include biopesticides (fungi or bacteria), botanicals (plant extracts, oils), minerals, as well as products for crop stress management [6,7].…”

“…Biorational products are low-environmental-impact products for use in agriculture [6][7][8]. They include biopesticides (fungi or bacteria), botanicals (plant extracts, oils), minerals, as well as products for crop stress management [6,7]. Several products are of commercial use at present, for example, a large number of bacterial strains have been isolated and identified as biocontrol agents against tomato diseases [8].…”

Rhizospheric microorganisms: The gateway to a sustainable plant health

“…Compost, crop residues, peat, organic wastes, and biochar are examples of such organic soil additives (Akanmu et al, 2020;Chukwuka et al, 2020), although biofumigation is also used, for example, to reduce disease through soil fungistatic (Bonanomi et al, 2018). Organic manure (both animal dung and biomass) applied as a soil amendment, in contrast to issues linked with the use of agrochemicals, plays a vital role in Bejarano and Puopolo, 2020 the control of plant health and the recycling of soil nutrients (Akanmu et al, 2021). Organically altered soil has a potentially superior operational microbiome, with more positive microbial activities and functionally connected than soils that have been fertilized with chemical fertilizers.…”