Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions

Background 1. Some 25% of the crop yield is lost every year, because of diseases caused by fungi and other pathogens. Therefore, plant protection products are on the market to fight these diseases. Presently these are mainly chemicals, but their use is often threatening the health of people and polluting the environment. Disease control with beneficial microbes is an alternative which allows sustainable crop production. The use of microbial plant protection products is growing and their importance will strongly increase because of political and public pressure. 2. The world population is growing and the amount of food needed by 2050 will be the double of what is produced now, whereas the area of agricultural land is decreasing. We have to increase crop yield in a sustainable way. Chemical plant growth promoters have to be replaced by microbiological products. Also here, the use of microbial products is growing and their importance will strongly increase. 3. An increasing area of agricultural land is salinated. Global warming will increase this process. Plants growth is inhibited by salt or even made impossible and farmers tend to disuse the most salinated lands. Microbes have been very successfully used to alleviate salt stress of plants (including in a project I coordinated in Uzbekistan). 4. Chemical pollution of land can make plant growth difficult and the crop grown on such lands is often polluted and not suitable for consumption. Microbes have been used to degrade these chemical pollutants. Short description and purpose. The book will give a brief description of the major topics and attempts required to solve the problems described above. This will help humankind to make the transition to sustainable agriculture and to increase the yield of healthy food.