Response of Plant Rhizosphere Microenvironment to Water Management in Soil- and Substrate-Based Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Systems: A Review

Abstract

As natural agroecology deteriorates, controlled environment agriculture (CEA) systems become the backup support for coping with future resource consumption and potential food crises. Compared with natural agroecology, most of the environmental parameters of the CEA system rely on manual management. Such a system is dependent and fragile and prone to degradation, which includes harmful bacteria proliferation and productivity decline. Proper water management is significant for constructing a stabilized rhizosphere microenvironment. It has been proved that water is an efficient tool for changing the availability of nutrients, plant physiological processes, and microbial communities within. However, for CEA issues, relevant research is lacking at present. The article reviews the interactive mechanism between water management and rhizosphere microenvironments from the perspectives of physicochemical properties, physiological processes, and microbiology in CEA systems. We presented a synthesis of relevant research on water–root–microbes interplay, which aimed to provide detailed references to the conceptualization, research, diagnosis, and troubleshooting for CEA systems, and attempted to give suggestions for the construction of a high-tech artificial agricultural ecology.

Rhizosphere inoculation of Nicotiana benthamiana with Trichoderma harzianum TRA1-16 in controlled environment agriculture: Effects of varying light intensities on the mutualism-parasitism interaction

“…The rhizosphere microenvironment could be significantly altered during Trichoderma colonization, proliferation, and controlled light conditions. The rhizodeposition was a privileged and specialized resource for Trichoderma , especially in CEA models similar to this study that cultivate plants in the limited volume of a substrate cube ( Tan et al., 2021 ).…”

“…With accelerated urbanization, modern agriculture puts forward new requirements for agricultural industrialization, such as localization of food production, biosecurity, pest and drought mitigation, and year-round crop production ( Benke and Tomkins, 2017 ; Engler and Krarti, 2021 ; Tan et al., 2021 ). Controlled environment agriculture (CEA), which is currently manifested as sustainable intensification ( Pretty, 2018 ), is seen as a strategy to address these challenges.…”

Root phenotypes as modulators of microbial microhabitats

“…This is particularly relevant because most soil microbes respond strongly to soil moisture variations (Neilson et al, 2017;De Vries et al, 2020). Water is necessary to microbes as a solvent for intracellular biochemical reactions, and its presence affects the mobility and access to nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous), in addition to oxygen needed for aerobic growth (Tan et al, 2021). Furthermore, microbial cells are often in an osmotic balance with their immediate surroundings via the accumulation of compatible solutes/osmoprotectants (e.g., betaines) to maintain water potential in their favor under drier conditions, which incurs metabolic costs to the cell (Schimel, 2018).…”

High Light Intensity from Blue-Red LEDs Enhance Photosynthetic Performance, Plant Growth, and Optical Properties of Red Lettuce in Controlled Environment

“…Climate changes, as well as the increase in urban populations and the need to fulfil the UN Sustainable Development Goals, pose the need to produce more with less, increasing the resilience of food systems [1,2]. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems like vertical farming (VF) or plant factories with artificial light (PFAL) are proposed as suitable means to produce food in cities [3,4], with several economic and social benefits [5,6]. Crop production in such systems can reach approximately 80-90% higher water and resource use efficiency compared to open field cultivation, thanks to optimal environment control [7,8].…”