The human eye has the highest sensitivity for the color green, and since plants are critical for human survival, this makes sense. We look at the leaves of our plants every time we are in the field, but we do not often think about the denizens of this strange habitat, unless something is going wrong. “The phyllosphere is the largest biological surface on Earth and an untapped reservoir of functional microbiomes. (Zhan, et.al., 2022)” Research over the last several decades has been, and continues to, elucidate the wide variety of benefits that can be attributed to plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). Unfortunately, less attention has been paid to the phyllosphere and the organisms that make up the phyllobiome. This, however, is beginning to change.
Some incredible discoveries have been uncovered about the benefits of these plant growth promoting phyllobacteria and I think it is important for us to spend some time discussing these beneficial functions. In the upcoming episode of the podcast, Dennis and I will highlight some of these, such as: abiotic stress reduction, biotic stress reduction, and improved nutrient acquisition as we shed some light on this amazing above ground world.
Zhan C, Matsumoto H, Liu Y, Wang M. Pathways to engineering the phyllosphere microbiome for sustainable crop production. Nat Food. 2022 Dec;3(12):997-1004. doi: 10.1038/s43016-022-00636-2. Epub 2022 Dec 5. PMID: 37118297.