Abstract
Herbaceous grafting is a propagation method largely used in solanaceous and cucurbit crops for enhancing their agronomic performances especially under (a)biotic stress conditions. Besides these grafting-mediated benefits, recent advances about microbial networking in the soil/root interface, indicated further grafting potentialities to act as soil environment conditioner by modulating microbial communities in the rhizosphere. By selecting a suitable rootstock, grafting can modify the way of interacting root system with the soil environment regulating the plant ecological functions able to moderate soilborne pathogen populations and to decrease the risk of diseases. Genetic resistance(s) to soilborne pathogen(s), root-mediate recruiting of microbial antagonists and exudation of antifungal molecules in the rhizosphere are some defense mechanisms that grafted plants may upgrade, making the cultivation less prone to the use of synthetic fungicides and therefore more sustainable. In the current review, new perspectives offered by the available literature concerning the potential benefits of grafting, in enhancing soilborne disease resistance through modulation of indigenous suppressive microbial communities are presented and discussed.
Highlights
Modern agriculture needs innovative strategies inspired by the principles of agroecology, aimed to guarantee soil conservation and fertility, to face the adversities that affect crop productivity and, generally, to increase the sustainability of intensive systems
Countries; this advanced technology allowed to reduce the negative impact of soilborne pathogens in solanaceous and cucurbit crops depending on the disease resistance level of rootstock
Recent studies demonstrated that rootstock-mediated effects on rhizosphere microbiome can contribute to reduce the soilborne diseases by stimulating indigenous microflora able to compete for food and space with plant pathogens and to reduce their activity through antibiosis and hyperparasitism
Summary
Modern agriculture needs innovative strategies inspired by the principles of agroecology, aimed to guarantee soil conservation and fertility, to face the adversities that affect crop productivity and, generally, to increase the sustainability of intensive systems. Investigations on rhizosphere microbiome carried out by next-generation sequencing technologies allowed to identify and quantify microorganisms associated with the root apparatus of vegetable crops highlighting an evolutionistic mechanism of microbial recruiting adopted by plants. Vegetable grafting is a propagation method largely used in solanaceous and cucurbit crops to increase plant resistance to soilborne pathogens as well as other environmental stresses, and to enhance crop productivity and fruit quality [4]. In the latest years, increasing studies on the ecological role of the grafting revealed new interesting opportunities of this technology to contrast and limit the activity of soilborne pathogens and their damages on vegetable crops, by modifying the presence of beneficial root-associated microbes. This review offers a novel perspective on the potentialities of vegetable grafting as sustainable practices to enhance crop resistance to environmental stresses through the modulation of microbial community structure in the rhizosphere
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