Soil-borne diseases constrain soybean production. An effective strategy to mitigate soil-borne diseases is developing disease suppressive soils to reduce plant disease, even in presence of a pathogen, susceptible host and favorable environmental conditions. Typically this is done with cover crops, crop rotation and no-till. This project studies a novel approach – using artificial selection to formulate a microbial cocktail that will confer disease suppression against a wide range of endemic soil-borne pathogens of soybean. Research takes advantage of the old rotation plots on the Auburn University campus to study their associated microbial communities that contribute towards healthy soil profiles and identifies keystone species of disease suppressive soils. Inoculating soybean seeds with keystone microbials before germination, may provide protection against plant pathogens.

Key Benefactors:
farmers, agronomists, Extension agents