Development of fungal-mediated soil suppressiveness against Fusarium wilt disease via plant residue manipulation

Background The development of suppressive soils is a promising strategy to protect plants against soil-borne diseases in a sustainable and viable manner. The use of crop rotation and the incorporation of plant residues into the soil are known to alleviate the stress imposed by soil pathogens through dynamics changes in soil biological and physicochemical properties. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which specific soil amendments of plant residues trigger the development of plant-protective microbiomes. Here, we investigated how the incorporation of pineapple residues in soils highly infested with the banana Fusarium wilt disease alleviates the pathogen pressure via changes in soil microbiomes. Results The addition of above- and below-ground pineapple residues in highly infested soils significantly reduced the number of pathogens in the soil, thus resulting in a lower disease incidence. The development of suppressive soils was mostly related to trackable changes in specific fungal taxa affiliated with Aspergillus fumigatus and Fusarium solani, both of which displayed inhibitory effects against the pathogen. These antagonistic effects were further validated using an in vitro assay in which the pathogen control was related to growth inhibition via directly secreted antimicrobial substances and indirect interspecific competition for nutrients. The disease suppressive potential of these fungal strains was later validated using microbial inoculation in a well-controlled pot experiment. Conclusions These results mechanistically demonstrated how the incorporation of specific plant residues into the soil induces trackable changes in the soil microbiome with direct implications for disease suppression. The incorporation of pineapple residues in the soil alleviated the pathogen pressure by increasing the relative abundance of antagonistic fungal taxa causing a negative effect on pathogen growth and disease incidence. Taken together, this study provides a successful example of how specific agricultural management strategies can be used to manipulate the soil microbiome towards the development of suppressive soils against economically important soil-borne diseases.