Sustainable agricultural practices are necessary to mitigate climate change and produce more food, fiber and renewable fuels

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded $328,351.36 to The Regents of the University of California, doing business as University of California, Berkeley, on March 15, 2026, under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), CFDA 10.310.

The research combines field-level computational analysis with laboratory experiments to develop synthetic bacterial communities that enhance plant growth and productivity. The work leverages multivariate datasets on root and shoot phenotypes from a field trial of 16 diverse maize lines alongside 323 candidate beneficial bacteria identified in the same study to computationally predict co-occurring or exclusionary microbial community members that lead to enhanced crop growth. Microbes within the predicted communities will be isolated and characterized by genome sequencing and high-throughput bioassays. Nutrient exchange between plant roots and the microbial community will be quantified using isotopic labeling and metabolite profiling. The research addresses the variable performance of microbial products currently available to farmers by determining how plant root exudates affect the colonization and persistence of exogenously supplied beneficial microbes.

Performance occurs at Berkeley, California. The period of performance runs from March 15, 2026, through April 14, 2027. The assistance type is a Project Grant.

An untapped frontier in agriculture is to promote beneficial interactions with microbes as a sustainable mechanism of providing nutrients to crops. 'microbial' products are already available to farmers; however, in practice, these products display highly variable results and current data suggest that this is tightly linked to the ability of the beneficial microbes to colonize and persist with their plant hosts. Plant root exudates are a major factor that determine the colonization and persistence phenotypes of exogenously supplied microbes; however, our knowledge of how plant exudates affect colonization and persistence is too limited to be translated into improved performance of microbial products. This proposal combines field level, computational observations with lab based, reductionist experiments. Together, these approaches will yield new synthetic communities of bacteria with plant growth promoting abilities and fundamental knowledge of how plant root exudates affect the colonization and persistence of the synthetic communities. In the proposed studies, multivariate datasets on root and shoot phenotypes from a field trial of 16 diverse maize lines will be leveraged with 323 candidate beneficial bacteria identified in the same study to computationally predict CO-occurring or exclusionary (never CO-occurring) microbial community members that lead to enhanced growth and plant productivity. Microbes within the communities will be isolated and characterized by genome sequencing and high throughput bioassays and nutrient exchange between plant roots and the microbial community will be quantified using isotopic labeling and metabolite profiling.