Securing the Crop Microbiome
for Agri-bioscience Research

The UK Crop Microbiome Cryobank (UK-CMCB) project integrates genomic (DNA) data with a cryobank collection of samples for the soil microbiomes of the UKs major crop plant systems. Microbiomes are all the microbes present in any one ecosystem. For this project the microbiomes are from the rhizosphere (the soil surrounding the crop plant roots) and from bulk soil (soil outside the rhizosphere). A beneficial microbiome results in a healthy plant and can lead to improved crop yield and improved crop quality. 

The UK-CMCB will provide a facility for researchers to source data and samples, including living microbial material, as well as genomic and metagenomic sequences from different soil microbiome environments. Specifically the project will produce a microbiome resource comprising 

1. An integrated cryopreserved collection of samples (rhizophere and bulk  soil, bacterial and fungal isolates and DNA) from crop plant systems (initially barley, oats, oil seed rape, sugar beet and wheat) 
2. An open access AgMicrobiomeBase of microbiome data and associated meta-data linked to current public resources such as MGnify.