BBSRC Embrapa - Understanding the importance of the wheat root microbiome for sustainable crop production.

The UK team will be comprised of 3 Rothamsted based scientists: Dr. Tim Mauchline (UK Principal Investigator), Prof. Penny Hirsch and Mr. Ian Clark. The Brazilian team from Embrapa environment is composed of three scientists: Dr. Rodrigo Mendes (Brazil Principal Investigator), Dr. Vanessa Nessner and Dr. Maike Rossmann. The complete team have complementary and overlapping skill sets necessary to perform rhizosphere metagenomics and wheat microcosm experiments.

UK team
Dr. Mauchline is a microbiologist with expertise in rhizosphere microbiology and microcosms of various crops including wheat. Prof. Hirsch is a soil microbiologist with a wealth of experience in soil nutrient cycling. Mr. Ian Clark is a microbiologist with bioinformatics skills.

Brazil team
Dr. Mendes is a molecular microbiologist with skills in metagenomics of agricultural systems. Dr. Nessner is a molecular biologist with bioinformatics skills. Dr. Maike Rossman a soil microbiologist with experience of wheat cultivation.

This pump-priming proposal aims to continue the collaborative links established by the visit of Dr. Tim Mauchline to Dr. Rodrigo Mendes' laboratory at Embrapa Environment for three weeks in May 2014, funded by an ISIS award. Dr. Mauchline's visit proved very useful as it allowed him to become embedded within the Embrapa group. Many discussions were held between Dr. Mauchline and Dr. Mendes, as well with other members of the unit, to determine future directions of microbiome research in the rhizosphere with respect to wheat yields. As a direct result of the visit, a post-doctoral scientist based at Embrapa Environment, Dr. Vanessa Nessner, has joined the Rothamsted team for a period of five months (Dec- May 2015) to work on the wheat microbiome in healthy and diseased plants, and her work will provide a platform for the pump-priming research. Additionally, Dr. Maike Rossmann, who spent a one year post-doctoral position with the Rothamsted team, is now based in Dr. Mendes' laboratory at Embrapa environment working on the metagenomics of the wheat rhizosphere in different soil types. As such, we have developed a functioning team unit between the Rothamsted and Embrapa environment microbiology labs, with complementary skills, which this proposal hopes to build on.

The main field experiment has already been setup at Rothamsted, and will require no extra costs as permission has been granted to sample it. The research costs are for soil DNA extractions kits, amplicon sequencing and a comparative pot experiment. Please see the JoR for more information. Wheat sampling, soil DNA extractions and pot study analyses will be a collaborative effort as the visiting Embrapa Brazilian scientists and the Rothamsted team will conduct these together in the Rothamsted field trial and labs during their one month visit to the UK.

The main costs requested will be for partners to travel between Brazil and the UK. Dr. Mendes, Dr. Rossmann and Dr. Nessner will travel to the UK to discuss and write the full grant proposal, in addition to performing the collaborative field and lab work described above. We will also invite a further three scientists to provide advice (Prof. Phil Poole and Dr. Gary Bending from the UK, and Dr. Fernando Andreote from Brazil) in a small-scale workshop. It is proposed that Dr. Mauchline, Prof. Penny Hirsch and Mr. Ian Clark from the Rothamsted team will also travel to Embrapa environment in order to further discussions, and to draft a manuscript from the preliminary data with the Brazil team.

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The proposal is ODA compliant as it aims to address the global problem of sustainable wheat production; this is very much an issue for Brazil, which aims to expand wheat cultivation to tropical savannah areas (the Cerrado), as well as to increase production and productivity in existing wheat-growing areas. In order to do this, we need a better understanding of the role that the wheat root microbiome has in plant productivity in conjunction with cultivar and crop fertilisation management. This will be tackled using a heritage wheat field trial, with over 40 old and new cultivars, at Rothamsted Research in the UK. This unique resource will form the core of the project, which will be sampled and analysed using next-generation sequencing methodologies to effectively and efficiently identify core components of the microbiome. This will act as a platform to manipulate the system to enhance crop production in Brazil.