Abstract
All plants in natural ecosystems are thought to be symbiotic with fungal endophytes, some of which confer abiotic stress tolerance (drought, temperature, salinity). Recently, some of these fungal endophytes were commercialized as a product, BioEnsure®, to confer abiotic stress tolerance to food crops (www.adsymtech.com, Redman and Rodriguez, Functional importance of the plant endophytic microbiome: implications for agriculture, forestry and bioenergy, Springer, 2017). These endophytes enhance crop production on marginal lands and diminish the impacts of high temperatures on crop fertilization. Yield results from endophyte-colonized monocot and eudicot plants are remarkable and directly proportional to stress levels. Under low stress, BioEnsure® yield averages are 3% above control plants and increase to 26% under high stress. This was best exemplified in Rajasthan, India, where BioEnsure® was applied to pearl millet and mung bean seeds for 400 small landholding farmers. Under the hot, dry growing conditions that are typical in this part of India, the resulting average yield increases were 29% and 56%, respectively, compared to untreated plants. This translated to improved food security, animal fodder, carry-over seed, and revenues. Interest in the USA is growing with BioEnsure® treated seeds planted in 300,000 acres in 2017 and 600,000 acres in 2018, and more than 2,000,000 acres are projected for 2019.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alvarez-Loayza P, White JF Jr, Torres MS, Gil N, Svenning J-C, Balslev H, Kristiansen T (2011) Light converts endosybiotic fungus to pathogen, influencing seedling survival and recruitment of host. PLoS One 6(1):e16386
Brinkman H-J, Hendrix CS (2011) Food insecurity and violent conflict: causes, consequences, and addressing the challenges. https://ucanr.edu/blogs/food2025/blogfiles/14415.pdf
Chaw S, Chang C, Chen H, Li W (2004) Dating the monocot-dicot divergence and the origin of core eudicots using whole chloroplast genomes. J Mol Evol 58:424–441
Deaton BJ, Lipka B (2015) Political instability and food security. J Food Sec 3:29–33
Gurian-Sherman D (2012) High and dry: why genetic engineering is not solving agriculture’s drought problem in a thirsty world. Union of Concerned Scientists. www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/high-and-dry-report.pdf
Komives T, Kirlay Z (2017) From golden rice to drought-tolerant maize and new techniques to control plant disease – can we expect a breakthrough in crop production. Ecocycles 3:1–5
Krings M, Taylor TN, Hass H, Kerp H, Dotzler N, Hermsen EJ (2007) Fungal endophytes in a 400 million-yr-old land plant: infection pathways, spatial distribution and host responses. New Phytol 174:648–657
Lofgren LA, LeBlanc NR, Certano AK, Nachtigall J, LaBine KM, Riddle J, Broz K, Dong Y, Bethan B, Kafer CW, Corby KH (2018) Fusarium graminearum: pathogen or endophyte of North American grasses? New Phytol 217(3):1203–1212
Lugtenberg BJJ, Caradus JR, Johnson LJ (2016) Fungal endophytes for sustainable crop production. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 92:1–17
Márquez LM, Redman RS, Rodriguez RJ, Roossinck MJ (2007) A virus in a fungus in a plant: three-way symbiosis required for thermal tolerance. Science 315:513–515
Nuccioa ML, Paulb M, Batea NJ, Cohna J, Cutlerc SR (2018) Where are the drought tolerant crops? An assessment of more than two decades of plant biotechnology effort in crop improvement. Plant Sci 273:110–119
Redecker D, Kodner R, Graham LE (2000) Glomalean fungi from the Ordovician. Science 289:1920–1921
Redman RS, Rodriguez RJ (2017) The symbiogenic Tango: achieving climate resilient crops via mutualistic plant-fungal relationships. In: Doty SL (ed) Functional importance of the plant endophytic microbiome: implications for agriculture, forestry and bioenergy. Springer, Cham, pp 71–88
Redman RS, Dunigan DD, Rodriguez RJ (2001) Fungal symbiosis: from mutualism to parasitism, who controls the outcome, host or invader? New Phytol 151:705–716
Redman RS, Sheehan KB, Stout RG, Rodriguez RJ, Henson JM (2002) Thermotolerance generated by plant/fungal symbiosis. Science 298:1581
Rodriguez RJ, Henson J, Van Volkenburgh E, Hoy M, Wright L, Beckwith F, Kim Y, Redman RS (2008) Stress tolerance in plants via habitat-adapted symbiosis. ISME-Nat 2:404–416
Rodriguez RJ, White JFJ, Arnold AE, Redman RS (2009) Fungal endophytes: diversity and functional roles. Tansley review. New Phytol 182:314–330
Simmons E (2017) Recurring storms: food insecurity, political instability, and conflict. www.csis.org/analysis/recurring-storms-food-insecurity-political-instability-and-conflict
Singh LP, Gill SS, Tuteja N (2011) Unraveling the role of fungal symbionts in plant abiotic stress tolerance. Plant Signal Behav 6(2):175–191
Skøt J, Lipper L, Thomas G, Agostini A, Bertini R, De Young C, Lowder S, Meybeck A, Mottet A, Ramasamy S, Rose S, Steinfeld H (2016) http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6030e.pdf
Wolfe KH, Gouy M, Yang Y, Sharp PM, Li W (1989) Date of the monocot-dicot divergence estimated from chloroplast DNA sequence data. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 86:6201–6205
Yang YW, Lai KN, Tai PY, Li WH (1999) Rates of nucleotide substitution in angiosperm mitochondrial DNA sequences and dates of divergence between Brassica and other angiosperm lineages. J Mol Evol 48:597–604
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rodriguez, R. et al. (2019). Programming Plants for Climate Resilience Through Symbiogenics. In: Verma, S., White, Jr, J. (eds) Seed Endophytes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10504-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10504-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-10503-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10504-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)