PLANT GROWTH PROMOTING RHIZOBACTERIA: A SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY TO MANAGE FERTILIZER USE EFFICIENCY IN CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT AGRICULTURE

To address this knowledge gap regarding microbial resources and their roles in nutrient management for greenhouse production, we propose to identify plant growth promoting rhizobacteria that can be used to create synthetic communities to benefit crop performance in soilless, containerized production systems and to investigate how the rhizosphere microbiome is influenced by common greenhouse production practices.This will be addressed with 4 specific objectives:Objective 1: Identify phosphorus solubilizing bacteria (PSB) and siderophore producing bacteria (SPB) from a greenhouse rhizospheric bacteria collection. Objective 2: Evaluate the beneficial effects of individual PSB and SPB applications on greenhouse crop performance parameters and nutrient content. Objective 3: Create synthetic bacterial communities (consortia) that can increase fertilizer nutrient use efficiency and improve crop performance in soilless, containerized greenhouse production systems. Objective 4: Determine the influence of production system characteristics on the rhizosphere microbiome structure of bedding plants growing in containers.