How do we ensure a sustainable future agriculture that meets the requirements of a growing world
population and that uses less artificial agrochemicals? One possible solution may be to use natural
herbicides that plants produce themselves to keep competitive neighbours at bay. Many plant species,
including cereal crops such as wheat and maize, release such chemical compounds into the soil, which
are then converted by microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. In case of rapid conversion, the
substances may be removed before they can deploy their toxic effects. Other times, the conversion is
slow, such that the molecules stay in soil for a long time and might inhibit the following sowing. In
some cases, the plant-derived compound is harmless at first, and soil-dwelling microorganisms are
necessary to turn it into a toxic herbicide.
If we want to use the natural herbicides that are produced by some of our crop plants for efficient,
sustainable agricultural practices, we need to understand what happens to the molecules in the soil,
after they get released by the plant. The present project therefore addresses the following questions in
a laboratory setting: Which microorganisms are actively involved in converting these compounds?
What are the bacterial genes necessary for the conversion processes? And what products result from
this conversion? With the answers to these questions, we will eventually make these natural plant-
derived herbicides accessible for the development of sustainable agricultural methods that will help
feeding future generations.
This project is a collaboration between two of Austrias leading plant research institutes, the Gregor
Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, and the University of Natural Resources and Life
Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). Making maximal use of the respective strengths of the research labs
involved, the project is highly interdisciplinary and combines analytical chemistry with genomics. We
thus aim to gain insights into the molecular and genetic components that play a role in biochemical
plant-plant interaction, and to gain a comprehensive understanding of this complex and essential
biological process.