Microbial consortia : concept and application in fruit crop management

Microbial consortia thrive in nature, in a range of environments including biofilms, food products, soils, and wastewater. Borrowing the concept from nature, it is possible to characterize, engineer, and manage consortia, which as a strategy are being explored for applications in varied fields, including agriculture. This is still a broadly conceptual ideology that requires further development. Nevertheless, there are several areas of fruit crop management that can benefit from the managed use of microbial consortia, in particular as environmentally sustainable alternatives to chemical usage. Microbial consortia play a vital role in soil management and nutrient mobilization, in disease prevention and plant defense, in management of stress tolerance, in postharvest fruit management, and in overall ecosystem management. In this chapter, we present the concept of managed consortia and discuss the technology and challenges of microbiome engineering in fruit crop management.