URBAN AG
Microbes help grass thrive
UGA CAES researchers receive grant to study relationship by Merritt Melancon for CAES News While many people know that the microbes in our guts are an
important part of our health, many are unaware that microbes are just as important to our crops.
UAC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2019
While breeding more water-efficient tall fescue has been a goal of plant breeders for decades, UGA geneticists are taking a new approach. They are investigating how the grass interacts with symbiotic fungi, which has been found to fortify it against heat and drought stress.
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Different microbes can help plants acquire nutrients, fend off pests and disease, and produce higher yields, but we know very little about how these partnerships work. University of Georgia researchers are working to understand these partnerships so that they can be used to breed better, more sustainable crops.
A team of researchers at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has received a $1.35 million grant from the National Science Foundation to better understand how plants interact with their microbiomes. “Just like people, plants host trillions of microbes that live on, around and inside them,” said principal investigator Jason Wallace, a CAES professor of crop and soil sciences. “Some of these cause disease but many are beneficial, helping the plant thrive in harsh conditions, but we don’t know how this interaction works."
“Learning how a plant’s microbes make it more resilient could be an important key to developing more sustainable and stress-tolerant crops in the future.” Wallace’s team is focusing on a grass called tall fescue, which has been grown for animal feed for over 70 years and covers 40 million acres across the U.S. While breeding more water-efficient fescue has been a goal of plant breeders for decades, UGA geneticists are taking a new approach. They are investigating how the grass interacts with symbiotic fungi, which has been found to fortify it against heat and drought stress.
Beneficial partnership Some types of tall fescue have a fungus, Epichloe coenophiala, living inside them, which helps the plant survive drought, heat and disease. It also helps the grass fend off insects and predators. Ironically, this partnership was discovered because the fungus usually produces toxic chemicals, ergot alkaloids, that make cattle sick. UGA was instrumental in breeding the first commercial varieties with toxin-free strains back in the 1990s. Wallace’s team will be working with fescue that contains the fungus to understand how such a beneficial partnership works, including how the plant and fungus communicate with each other and how their interaction leads to higher stress tolerance in the plant. The hope is that understanding this system will show how similarly strong, beneficial partnerships can be made in other crops to boost agricultural production and sustainability. Wallace is partnering with Carolyn Young,
