Microbial rewiring of plant physiology for resilient agriculture, Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2019: Invited speaker and keynote lecture in; Global food security: the challenges for microbiology

Food production is increasingly threatened by epidemics and climatic extremes. Green revolution cultivars have been selected for high yields under protected conditions. However, modern crops often lack the proper stress detection and response mechanisms needed to withstand stress. We propose therefore to restore crop stress resistance by rewiring plant physiology with microorganisms.Several plant-associated bacteria and fungi naturally influence plant hormonal signaling, offering a tremendous potential to reprogram plants to perceive, process and respond to stressors.We illustrate this potential with hormonal manipulation by soil microbes. Several microorganisms can increase or decrease ethylene level, a key regulator that coordinates plant growth and stress resistance. We demonstrate that applying hormone-manipulating organisms to plant roots result in the same changes in plant growth and stress resistance patterns than genetic modifications in plant genome. For instance, increasing plant ethylene levels, be it by microbes or mutations, equally enhances stress resistance.We conclude that microbial biotechnology aiming to create a dynamic and climate change-proof agriculture, is likely a powerful tool allowing to decouple physiology from phenotype and offer a new phenotype able to grow under changing environmental and emerging climate.