On the invitation of the Institute of Plant Protection, Dr.Paul Harvey of CSIRO Agriculture and Food Soil Ecology & Biological Function visited the institute from Oct. 27-28, 2019, with Prof. Zhang Liqun of Chinese Agricultural University and Dr. Zhang Xinjian of Institute of Soil Ecology, Shandong Academy of Sciences, for academic exchange on soil microbiology. Director Ma Ping attended the meeting and welcomed the quests on behalf of the institute.
Dr. Paul Harvey gave a presentation about impacts of cropping sequences on soil fungal communities & root disease incidence in sugarcane, introducing the changes in soil microbiome with years of continuous planting for sugarcane in Australia and analyzing the relationship between rhizosphere soil fungal microbiome and sugarcane soil-borne diseases occurrence. He also shared his experiences on soil microbiome research and discussed with the participants about how to select target strains for biological control according to the microbiome data. Dr. Guo Qinggang, head of the plant disease and biological control laboratory of the institute, reported the work of his team on the control measures and mechanism of crop soil-borne diseases, especially introduced the application and functional mechanism of their microbial preparation, with bacillus subtilis NCD-2 strain as its main active components. After meeting, Dr. Paul Harvey with the domestic visiting experts visited the laboratory of plant disease bio-control research and the soil pathogen testing center. This communication sets the foundation for further collaboration in soil microbiome.