1. Microbial-Based Products to Control Soil-Borne Pathogens: Methods to Improve Efficacy and to Assess Impacts on Microbiome
- Author
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Ptaszek, Magdalena, Canfora, Loredana, Pugliese, Massimo, Pinzari, Flavia, Gilardi, Giovanna, Trzciński, Paweł, Malusà, Eligio, Ptaszek, Magdalena, Canfora, Loredana, Pugliese, Massimo, Pinzari, Flavia, Gilardi, Giovanna, Trzciński, Paweł, and Malusà, Eligio
- Abstract
Microbial-based products (either as biopesticide or biofertilizers) have a long history of application, though their use is still limited, mainly due to a perceived low and inconsistent efficacy under field conditions. However, their efficacy has always been compared to chemical products, which have a completely different mechanism of action and production process, following the chemical paradigm of agricultural production. This paradigm has also been applied to regulatory processes, particularly for biopesticides, making the marketing of microbial-based formulations difficult. Increased knowledge about bioinocula behavior after application to the soil and their impact on soil microbiome should foster better exploitation of microbial-based products in a complex environment such as the soil. Moreover, the multifunctional capacity of microbial strains with regard to plant growth promotion and protection should also be considered in this respect. Therefore, the methods utilized for these studies are key to improving the knowledge and understanding of microbial-based product activity and improving their efficacy, which, from farmers’ point of view, is the parameter to assess the usefulness of a treatment. In this review, we are thus addressing aspects related to the production and formulation process, highlighting the methods that can be used to evaluate the functioning and impact of microbial-based products on soil microbiome, as tools supporting their use and marketing., Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). The NHM-affiliated author Flavia Pinzari was funded by the H2020-MSCA-IF-EF-SE project “AlienInSoil”. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 892048”, NHM Repository, NHM Repository
- Published
- 2023