The interactions between bacteria and fungi, the main actors of the soil microbiome, remain poorly studied. Here, we show that the saprotrophic and ectomycorrhizal soil fungus Morchella crassipes acts as a bacterial farmer of Pseudomonas putida, which serves as a model soil bacterium. Farming by M. crassipes consists of bacterial dispersal, bacterial rearing with fungal exudates, as well as har...

In a field experiment, spreader plants of variety N13 infected with ratoon stunting disease were interplanted with healthy plants of indicator variety NC0376. When cane knives were not disinfected during manual harvesting, 62% ofstalks ofNC0376 down-row from the spreader plants were found to be infected after one harvest, and almost all the stalks were infected after three harvests. This compar...

High-throughput genotype screening is rapidly becoming a standard research tool in the post-genomic era. A major bottleneck currently exists, however, that limits the utility of this approach in the plant sciences. The rate-limiting step in current high-throughput pipelines is that tissue samples from living plants must be collected manually, one plant at a time. In this article I describe a no...

For 10,000 years agriculture has been based on the strategy of conserving and enhancing genetic diversity. Humans have always this time domesticated and modified wild plants and animals, the gifts of nature’s biodiversity. According to Erna Bennett (former genetic resources expert to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN), ‘The patchwork of cultivation sown by man unleashed an explos...

In the current century, agriculture sustainability and the reduction of environmental pressure are two main objectives of the management of agro-ecosystems that is challenged by energy inefficiency. In this respect, the present study assessed one of the most important planting systems in Sistan region by emergy analysis approach. It analyzed all inputs of greenhouse cucumber production system i...