Turkish Wheat Rhizosphere Microbiome

The root rhizosphere is the largest plant microbial habitat and consists of a complex domain where plant exudates, microorganisms and soil interact to regulate plant development. In this study, we sampled post-harvest soils from 10 different farms, spanning the geoclimatic diversity of wheat production areas in Türkiye. Each soil was used to cultivate new wheat plants in a growth chamber, from which rhizospheric soil was collected to characterize the bacterial microbiome by 16S metabarcoding. We adopted a long-read amplicon sequencing approach using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION platform, to identify bacterial taxa that contribute to wheat production and could be deployed as part of deliberate soil improvement strategies.