50 years of development of beneficial microbes for sustainable agriculture and society: Progress and challenges still to be met-part of the solution to global warming and “hothouse earth”

Abstract

This chapter is partly biographical and partly a challenge to current and future scientists. The progress and practice of the use of beneficial microbes in agriculture has improved and increased over the past decades. In the past 80 years, we have seen microbial agents first described, then developed both in terms of science and practice, and there are now millions of hectares planted with crops inoculated or otherwise benefitting from microbial agents. However, their promise is only partially realized, with, in my view, even greater advances still to be made. The next section describes the state of the art and the societal benefits that remain to be realized. The chapter begins with some general observations and ends with consideration of opportunities provided by endophytic symbiotic organisms. These can help us deal with pressing issues for agriculture and society. Between these opening and concluding sections is an account of my career and challenges that have been seen and met. Much of this chapter deals with fungi in the genus Trichoderma. The taxonomy of this genus has changed dramatically over the past few decades. At the start of my career, there were nine accepted species based on morphological characteristics (Rifai MA, A revision of the genus Trichoderma. Mycol Pap 116: 1-56, 1969). Now there are more than 250 recognized species based primarily on DNA sequencing information (Samuels GJ, Hebbar PK, Trichoderma. Identification and Agricultural Properties. The American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, 2015). Consequently, in all of the scientific literature published before 2000 and much that has been published later, the taxonomic species information does not conform to currently accepted terminology. Throughout this paper I will use the species names as originally adopted rather than trying to adjust names to new ones.