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WORLD SOIL REVIEW. "The overwhelming conclusion of the first-ever comprehensive report on the world’s soil resources, prepared by the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS), is that the majority of the world’s soil resources are in only fair, poor or very poor condition... and that conditions are getting worse in farm more cases than they are improving." https://lnkd.in/ezrxv9C View in LinkedIn

SOIL MICROBIOME AND SUSTAINABILITY. "At the system level, the microbiome plays an integral role in virtually all soil processes, such that microbial abundance, activity and composition will largely determine sustainable productivity of agricultural land." https://lnkd.in/e4AX4yB View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE this next weekend is about living soils. 2015 is the International Year of Soils, and the world soil Report Card is bleak. Just as medical biology has been exposed to a radical paradigm change with our understanding of the human microbiome, so also has this same thinking pervaded the cutting-edge of soil science, supported by data. The parallel of the chemical "Green Revolution" and our current over-use of antibiotics is unmistakable. https://lnkd.in/ezrxv9C View in LinkedIn

RANGE OF MICROBIOMES. The microbiome can be considered as an extension of the host genome. Microbiomes associated with above-ground (phyllosphere), below-ground (rhizosphere) and internal (endosphere) tissues of the same plant are distinct. Also, microbiomes occupying the same niche of different plants can be very different, particularly when the microbiome is viewed at fine taxonomic levels such as genus, species and strain." https://lnkd.in/e_jsyuZ View in LinkedIn

IN-VITRO RESULTS "have successfully shown magnetically sensitive radical-pair reactions in a cryptochrome extracted from the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. They saw a change in yields of order 25% at 30 mT and 1% at 1 mT. Although this is still much larger than the geomagnetic field, the authors speculate that the response in vivo may be much stronger." https://lnkd.in/eRUdQZj View in LinkedIn

OUTSOURCED GENOMES. "Microorganisms that colonize different plant compartments contain the plant’s second genome." An elegantly efficient solution to obtain genetic flexibility and enormous optionality. https://lnkd.in/eFwYd-J View in LinkedIn

PLANTS AND MAGNETIC FIELDS. "These findings show that higher plants are sensitive to the magnetic field in responses that are linked to cryptochrome-dependent signaling pathways. Because cryptochromes form radical pairs after photoexcitation, our results can best be explained by the radical-pair model." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00425-006-0383-0 View in LinkedIn

" "METAORGANISM. "Plants are being considered as a metaorganism," http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/166/2/689.full View in LinkedIn

PLANT CRYPTOCHROMES. "In Arabidopsis thaliana, two cryptochromes, CRY1 and CRY2, mediate several blue-light-dependent responses including hypocotyl growth inhibition." https://lnkd.in/ePWPwaU View in LinkedIn

EXTERNALIZED FUNCTIONALITY. "The rhizospheric microbiome acts as a highly evolved external functional milieu for plants...it is considered as a second genome to a plant. The establishment of plant and rhizospheric microbiome interaction is a highly coordinated event influenced by the plant host and soil. Recent studies show that plant host and developmental stage has a significant influence on shaping the rhizospheric microbiome." https://lnkd.in/eR5r2Dq View in LinkedIn