Abstract
BackgroundThe development of suppressive soils is a promising strategy to protect plants against soil-borne diseases in a sustainable and viable manner. The use of crop rotation and the incorporation of plant residues into the soil are known to alleviate the stress imposed by soil pathogens through dynamics changes in soil biological and physicochemical properties. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which specific soil amendments of plant residues trigger the development of plant-protective microbiomes. Here, we investigated how the incorporation of pineapple residues in soils highly infested with the banana Fusarium wilt disease alleviates the pathogen pressure via changes in soil microbiomes.ResultsThe addition of above- and below-ground pineapple residues in highly infested soils significantly reduced the number of pathogens in the soil, thus resulting in a lower disease incidence. The development of suppressive soils was mostly related to trackable changes in specific fungal taxa affiliated with Aspergillus fumigatus and Fusarium solani, both of which displayed inhibitory effects against the pathogen. These antagonistic effects were further validated using an in vitro assay in which the pathogen control was related to growth inhibition via directly secreted antimicrobial substances and indirect interspecific competition for nutrients. The disease suppressive potential of these fungal strains was later validated using microbial inoculation in a well-controlled pot experiment.ConclusionsThese results mechanistically demonstrated how the incorporation of specific plant residues into the soil induces trackable changes in the soil microbiome with direct implications for disease suppression. The incorporation of pineapple residues in the soil alleviated the pathogen pressure by increasing the relative abundance of antagonistic fungal taxa causing a negative effect on pathogen growth and disease incidence. Taken together, this study provides a successful example of how specific agricultural management strategies can be used to manipulate the soil microbiome towards the development of suppressive soils against economically important soil-borne diseases.CyJuYsbKET__Z9ZHp7dVcVVideo
Highlights
Identifying the key factors controlling a given function in agroecosystems is often a challenge, and further devising strategies to properly manipulate them to obtain desirable biological benefits can be even more complex [1, 2]
Fusarium wilt disease incidence and FocTR4 abundance Compared with the CK, the treatments amended with either pineapple above-ground (PS) or below-ground (PR) residues had significant (P < 0.05) negative effects on the occurrence of the banana Fusarium wilt disease
The treatments amended with banana above-ground (BS) or below-ground (BR) residues had a significant (P < 0.05) positive effect on the disease incidence compared to CK (Fig. 1a)
Summary
Identifying the key factors controlling a given function in agroecosystems is often a challenge, and further devising strategies to properly manipulate them to obtain desirable biological benefits can be even more complex [1, 2]. Sustainable intensification in agriculture relies on the development of practices that enhance crop yields without causing adverse environmental impacts [3] This can be achieved by implementing management that directly and/or indirectly modulates the soil microbiome to reduce adverse biotic pressures caused by pathogens [4, 5]. The soil microbiome pathogen density, diversity, and structure are the main factors operating in either promoting disease suppression or incidence [10, 11] In this scenario, the occurrence of key beneficial microbial taxa in soil has been shown to effectively control soil-borne diseases by directly inhibiting diverse pathogens [12]. We investigated how the incorporation of pineapple residues in soils highly infested with the banana Fusarium wilt disease alleviates the pathogen pressure via changes in soil microbiomes
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