Research Projects

Global food security is facing challenges due to increasing demand, anthropogenic factors, and climate change. soil sickness, salinity, heavy metal toxicity, and emerging pathogens and pests negatively impact crop productivity. The green revolution has increased crop productivity, but the intensive use of agrochemicals has deteriorated soil and environment quality. To address sustainable plant health, nutrition, and fitness, crop-associated rhizospheric microbiomes can be harnessed. Plant domestication has led to changes in agronomical traits but also reduced genetic diversity, particularly in microbial flora associated with the host plant. Crop wild relatives (CWR) have more adaptive potential and can tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses and grow in poor soil. The proposed project focuses on harnessing the rhizobiome of wild relatives of Chickpea for improving the health and climate resilience of cultivated chickpea. The development of effective synthetic microbial community (synCom) formulations based on the rhizospheric microbiome of Cicer reticulatum will provide mechanistic insights into how crop plants recruit their own rhizobiome and how the associated rhizobiome influences plant health and fitness. This work will help in formulating novel, ecologically sustainable strategies to enhance overall fitness of crop plants during stress conditions and enhance soil health, resulting in the development of climate smart crops.