Abstract
Abstract Research has shown that soil-borne beneficial microorganisms can enhance plant growth, productivity, and resistance against pests and pathogens and could thus serve as a sustainable alternative to agrochemicals. To date, however, the effect of soil-beneficial microbes under commercial crop production has been little assessed. We here investigated the effect of root inoculation with nine well-characterized bacterial and fungal strains and two consortia on tomato performance under intensive tomato crop management practices. We measured the impact of these root inoculations on plant growth, fruit quality, yield, and pest and pathogen incidence. While most microbial strains showed weak effects, we found that the fungal strains Trichoderma afroharzianum T22 and Funneliformis mosseae significantly increased marketable tomato yield. Moreover, we found that inoculation with most of the fungal strains led to a significant reduction in the incidence of the devastating leaf-mining pest Tuta absoluta , while this effect was not observed for bacterial inoculants. In addition, we found that microbial inoculations did not impact the incidence of introduced natural pest enemies, supporting their compatibility with well-established integrated pest management strategies in horticulture. In summary, the observed general positive effects of soil microbes on tomato yield and resistance reinforce the move toward broader adoption of microbial inoculants in future crop production, ultimately improving agricultural sustainability.
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Claims 5
Claim · model-written summary
The fungal strain Trichoderma afroharzianum T22 significantly increased marketable tomato yield.
- Taxon
- tomato
Solanum lycopersicume0 - Treatment
- Trichoderma afroharzianum T22e0
- Interactor
- Trichoderma afroharzianum T22Trichoderma afroharzianume0symbiont
- Outcome
- marketable tomato yielde0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the fungal strains Trichoderma afroharzianum T22 and Funneliformis mosseae significantly increased marketable tomato yield”
Claim · model-written summary
The fungal strain Funneliformis mosseae significantly increased marketable tomato yield.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicume0
- Treatment
- Funneliformis mosseaee0
- Interactor
- Funneliformis mosseae
Funneliformis mosseaee0symbiont - Outcome
- marketable tomato yielde0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the fungal strains Trichoderma afroharzianum T22 and Funneliformis mosseae significantly increased marketable tomato yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Inoculation of tomato with most of the fungal strains significantly reduced the incidence of the leaf-mining pest Tuta absoluta.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicumt0
- Treatment
- inoculation with most of the fungal strainse0
- Interactor
- Tuta absoluta
.jpg?width=60)
Tuta absolutae0pest - Outcome
- incidencee0
- Direction
- reductione0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
.jpg?width=500)
Verbatim
e0“inoculation with most of the fungal strains led to a significant reduction in the incidence of the devastating leaf-mining pest Tuta absoluta”
t0“tomato”
Claim · model-written summary
The reduction in Tuta absoluta incidence was not observed for bacterial inoculants in tomato.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicumt0
- Treatment
- bacterial inoculantse0
- Interactor
- Tuta absolutaTuta absolutae0pest
- Outcome
- incidencee0
- Direction
- not observede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“inoculation with most of the fungal strains led to a significant reduction in the incidence of the devastating leaf-mining pest Tuta absoluta , while this effect was not observed for bacterial inoculants”
t0“tomato”
Claim · model-written summary
Microbial inoculations did not impact the incidence of introduced natural pest enemies in tomato.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicumt0
- Treatment
- microbial inoculationse0
- Interactor
- natural pest enemiese0biocontrol_agent
- Outcome
- incidence of introduced natural pest enemiese0
- Direction
- did not impacte0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“microbial inoculations did not impact the incidence of introduced natural pest enemies”
t0“tomato”
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