Title:
Science Says You Can Swap Your Fertilizer For Black-Eyed Peas
Author:
Lindsay Campbell
Published:
Modern Farmer, 25 January 2022]
From the article:
They’re a southern staple and commonly cooked on New Year’s for good luck, but black-eyed peas could also be a widely adopted alternative to nitrogen-based fertilizer in the future.
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Title:
No disruption of rhizobial symbiosis during early stages of cowpea domestication
Authors:
Gabriel S. Ortiz-Barbosa, Lorena Torres-Martínez, Angela Manci, Sierra Neal, Tarek Soubra, Fizzah Khairi, Jerry Trinh, Paola Cardenas & Joel L. Sachs
Published:
International Journal of Organic Evolution, 11 January 2022
Abstract:
Modern agriculture intensely selects aboveground plant structures, while often neglecting belowground features, and evolutionary tradeoffs between these traits are predicted to disrupt host control over microbiota. Moreover, drift, inbreeding, and relaxed selection for symbiosis in crops might degrade plant mechanisms that support beneficial microbes. We studied the impact of domestication on the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between cowpea and root-nodulating Bradyrhizobium. We combined genome-wide analyses with a greenhouse inoculation study to investigate genomic diversity, heritability, and symbiosis trait variation among wild and early-domesticated cowpea genotypes. Cowpeas experienced modest decreases in genome-wide diversity during early domestication. Nonetheless, domesticated cowpeas responded efficiently to variation in symbiotic effectiveness, by forming more root nodules with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia and sanctioning nonfixing strains. Domesticated populations invested a larger proportion of host tissues into root nodules than wild cowpeas. Unlike soybean and wheat, cowpea showed no compelling evidence for degradation of symbiosis during domestication. Domesticated cowpeas experienced a less severe bottleneck than these crops and the low nutrient conditions in Africa where cowpea landraces were developed likely favored plant genotypes that gain substantial benefits from symbiosis. Breeders have largely neglected symbiosis traits, but artificial selection for improved plant responses to microbiota could increase plant performance and sustainability.