Agrosphärenkolloqium - Plant-soil interactions for sustainable crop production - Janina Dierks - Jun. Prof. of Sustainable Crop Production – University of Bonn

https://sustaincrop.uni-bonn.de

How can we leverage ecological processes to meet the increasing global demand for food while reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint? This still is a critical question that needs to be addressed to tackle the global challenge of sustainable crop production. Soil microbes play a key role in nutrient cycling, and may confer crop tolerance to drought and resistance to pests. Hence, if we are to promote sustainable agroecosystem, we must look to managing interactions between crops and soil biotic and abiotic variables. In my talk I will describe how my research aims to better understand mechanisms underpinning plant-soil interactions and how to design diversified farming systems to harness plant-soil interactions for optimized agroecosystem functioning. I will talk about the role of native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, ubiquitous root symbionts, in interplant nutrient transfer in a simple agroforestry system in Malawi, share findings about the effectiveness of commercial seedling inoculation with mycorrhizal fungi in enhancing yield in large-scale horticultural systems, and provide some insight into ongoing research examining the role of mycorrhizal fungi in crop tolerance to drought and insect herbivory in organic cropping systems.