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Synergistic soil-less medium for enhanced yield of crops: a step towards incorporating genomic tools for attaining net zero hunger

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Abstract

Globally, industrial farming endangers crucial ecological mechanisms upon which food production relies, while 815 million people are undernourished and a significant number are malnourished. Zero Hunger aims to concurrently solve global ecological sustainability and food security concerns. Recent breakthroughs in molecular tools and approaches have allowed scientists to detect and comprehend the nature and structure of agro-biodiversity at the molecular and genetic levels, providing us an advantage over traditional methods of crop breeding. These bioinformatics techniques let us optimize our target plants for our soil-less medium and vice versa. Most of the soil-borne and seed-borne diseases are the outcomes of non-treated seed and growth media, which are important factors in low productivity. The farmers do not consider these issues, thereby facing problems growing healthy crops and suffering economic losses. This study is going to help the farmers increase their eco-friendly, chemical residue-free, quality yield of crops and their economic returns. The present invention discloses a synergistic soil-less medium that consists of only four ingredients mixed in optimal ratios by weight: vermicompost (70–80%), vermiculite (10–15%), coco peat (10–15%), and Rhizobium (0–1%). The medium exhibits better physical and chemical characteristics than existing conventional media. The vermiculite to coco peat ratio is reduced, while the vermicompost ratio is increased, with the goals of lowering toxicity, increasing plant and water holding capacity, avoiding drying of the media, and conserving water. The medium provides balanced nutrition and proper ventilation for seed germination and the growth of seedlings. Rhizobium is also used to treat the plastic bags and seeds. The results clearly show that the current synergistic soil-less environment is best for complete plant growth. Securing genetic advantages via sexual recombination, induced random mutations, and transgenic techniques have been essential for the development of improved agricultural varieties. The recent availability of targeted genome-editing technology provides a new path for integrating beneficial genetic modifications into the most significant agricultural species on the planet. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) has evolved into a potent genome-editing tool for imparting genetic modifications to crop species. In addition, the integration of analytical methods like population genomics, phylogenomics, and metagenomics addresses conservation problems, while whole genome sequencing has opened up a new dimension for explaining the genome architecture and its interactions with other species. The in silico genomic and proteomic investigation was also conducted to forecast future investigations for the growth of French beans on a synergistic soil-less medium with the purpose of studying how a blend of vermicompost, vermiculite, cocopeat, and Rhizobium secrete metal ions, and other chemical compounds into the soil-less medium and affect the development of our target plant as well as several other plants. This interaction was studied using functional and conserved region analysis, phylogenetic analysis, and docking tools.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Researchers Supporting Project (RSP2023R118), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Funding

This work was funded by Researchers Supporting Project (RSP2023R118), King Saud University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences, Solan, HP, India

    Nitika Thakur, Mohit Nigam & Nidhi Negi

  2. Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow Campus, Lucknow, 226028, U.P, India

    Garima Awasthi & Aryan Shukla

  3. Department of Botany, Division of Science and Technology, University of Education, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

    Anis Ali Shah

  4. Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Haripur, Haripur, KP, Pakistan

    Sher Aslam Khan

  5. School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, 2121 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA, 94704, USA

    Ryan Casini

  6. Department of Plant Production, College of Food & Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia

    Hosam O. Elansary

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  1. Nitika Thakur
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  2. Mohit Nigam
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  7. Sher Aslam Khan
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  8. Ryan Casini
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Contributions

N. T. formulated the whole idea and brought this issue up, as this was the need of the hour, proofread the manuscript, and added figures and tables. M. N. and N. N. added various sections, figures, and methodology to the article. A. A. S., S. A. K., R. C., and H. O. E added concepts related to sustainability and novel gene techniques. A. S. and G. A. incorporated the docking studies.

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Correspondence to Nitika Thakur.

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Thakur, N., Nigam, M., Awasthi, G. et al. Synergistic soil-less medium for enhanced yield of crops: a step towards incorporating genomic tools for attaining net zero hunger. Funct Integr Genomics 23, 86 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-023-01018-y

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