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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Laboratory for Agriculture and The Environment » Soil, Water & Air Resources Research » Research » Research Project #447370

Research Project: Revealing Corn Root Microbiome Associations to Increase Iowa Corn Producer Sustainability

Location: Soil, Water & Air Resources Research

Project Number: 5030-11610-006-014-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Nov 1, 2024
End Date: Jan 31, 2026

Objective:
Project aims to improve grower ability to manage plant-microbe symbioses in Iowa corn agriculture through: 1) testing the regional soil and management drivers influencing corn microbiomes in the field with specific emphasis on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and Massilia/Oxalobacteraceae community composition, abundance and activity, and 2) testing a high-throughput assay for an AMF-specific leaf metabolite for its ability to serve as a diagnostic test for growers.

Approach:
Objective 1: ARS will assess corn root microbiomes and AMF community composition in a regional survey of Iowa soils to determine whether certain soil types, drainage classes, or management systems constrain AMF and Massilia abundance and activity. ARS will work with cooperator to identify participating farmer fields and long-term cropping system experiments that span significant Iowa soil types, drainage classes and management practices. Plant and soil samples will be collected during the vegetative stage for assessing AMF colonization, AMF biomass in soil and sequencing of bacterial and fungal community composition. Further linkages between the target organisms and the broader plant microbiome, including nitrifiers, will be explored. Objective 2: ARS will assess whether AMF-specific blumenol derivatives quantitatively relate to AMF colonization across Iowa soil and management gradients and can serve as a low-cost assay to assess variation within and among fields for AMF activity. Using controlled experiments, we will determine if we can identify and quantify AMF-specific blumenols in corn leaves. If successful, corn leaf tissues will be sampled and assessed for the AMF-specific metabolite concentrations during sample collection for Objective 1. This data, in combination with the root colonization data measured in Objective 1, will be used to determine if the leaf metabolite can serve as a reliable diagnostic tool across soil and management gradients.