Researchers in the plant pathology and soil science departments received $850,000 for their project Unraveling the microbial mechanisms that mediate disease resurgence in plants following fungicide application through NIFA’s AFRI Agricultural Microbiomes in Plant Systems and Natural Resources program. It was among 19 projects sharing $12 million in funding.

Project summary (from CRIS website): Nearly $17 billion was spent worldwide on fungicides in 2020, however the impacts of fungicides on plant microbiomes remains poorly understood. The authors recently collected preliminary data in turfgrass that showed a 6-fold increase in disease following the application of the broad-spectrum fungicide chlorothalonil relative to a non-treated control. The preliminary study was unable to determine the molecular mechanisms of this ‘disease resurgence’, and in this proposal we seek to employ a more robust microbial community and metabolomic analysis to unravel the mechanisms behind the dysbiosis that occurs to plant microbiomes and microbial processes following fungicide applications in both turfgrass and corn. We hypothesize that certain, broad-spectrum fungicides disrupt the resident plant microbial community and decrease the ability of the community to suppress pathogen activity once the pathogen-suppressing activity of the fungicide has dissipated. The information gained in this project will be used to identify fungicide chemistries that cause disease resurgence in turfgrass and corn, understand key microbial taxa and microbial processes disrupted by chemical fungicides, and lead to the development of more effective biocontrol strategies that reduce reliance on synthetic fungicides in a broad range of agronomic and horticultural systems.