Project description:Global climate change increasingly challenges agriculture with flooding and salinity. Among strategies to enhance crop resilience to these stresses, we showed two mangrove strains that can enhance flooding and salinity tolerance in rice plants. Two strains massively enhanced the growth and yield of Oryza sativa cv. Nipponbare under hydroponic growth conditions with and without salt treatment. The bacteria-induced transcriptome changes in O. sativa roots related to ABA-signaling with suberin deposition in root tissues explain the altered responses of colonized rice plants to hypoxic and saline stress conditions. While enhancing yield and grain quality, bacterially colonized rice plants also show much earlier flowering, thereby massively shortening the life cycle of rice plants and opening the possibility for an additional harvest per year. These results show that microbes can be a powerful tool for enhancing the yield and resilience of rice to hypoxic and saline stress conditions.
