Building Resilience: Engineering the Plant Microbiome for Biotic Stress Management

Crop diseases result in significant losses and affect farmers’ livelihoods, making it crucial for the agricultural sector to remain resilient against the onset and spread of these diseases. Recent studies have emphasized building this resilience through the engineering of plant microbiomes. This chapter explores the role of plant-microbe interactions in shaping microbiome communities and examines how root exudates influence the recruitment and suppression of microorganisms in the soil. Microbe-microbe interactions also plays a crucial role in regulating the growth and decline of specific microbial populations within the soil environment. Importantly, the chapter discusses how engineering the soil microbiome can enhance disease suppression and minimize disease occurrence and transmission.