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Journals / Black Sea Journal of Agriculture / 2026 / Cilt: 9 Sayı: 1

Rhizosphere Microbiome Manipulation for Weed Suppression

Emine Kaya Altop(ONDOKUZ MAYIS ÜNİVERSİTESİ)0000-0002-0987-9352
Sine Kaya(ONDOKUZ MAYIS ÜNİVERSİTESİ)0000-0002-4219-9148
Pages
132–142
Publication Date
2025-12-18
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AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

While the results demonstrate the great potential of the rhizosphere microbiome for weed control, issues such as scaling up, stability, regulatory compliance, and understanding of mechanisms still linger.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:The rhizosphere microbiome refers to a complex and diverse community of microorganisms inhabiting the soil surrounding the roots of plants.
📊
Key Findings & Data:However, the performance of microorganisms is affected by different environmental factors like soil type, moisture content, temperature, crop rotation, and their combined effect with herbicides.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:While the results demonstrate the great potential of the rhizosphere microbiome for weed control, issues such as scaling up, stability, regulatory compliance, and understanding of mechanisms still linger.
🔬Design:Review & Systematic Survey
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:Bioaugmentation · Omics · Sustainable agriculture

Abstract

The rhizosphere microbiome refers to a complex and diverse community of microorganisms inhabiting the soil surrounding the roots of plants. This community is the basis of the healthy life of plants, nutrient cycling, and ecological interactions. Recently, its role as a reservoir of natural and environment-friendly methods for weed control compared to chemical-based methods has been emphasized. This review intend to present the recent scientific findings on the use of the rhizosphere microbiome for controlling weeds. The different ways, i.e., the use of microbial inoculants, bioaugmentation, biostimulation, and the engineering of root exudates, are very efficient in weed reduction while still doing the crops' growth. The combination of omic technologies such as metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics provides new understanding of microbiome functions and makes precise microbiome engineering possible for targeted weed suppression. However, the performance of microorganisms is affected by different environmental factors like soil type, moisture content, temperature, crop rotation, and their combined effect with herbicides. While the results demonstrate the great potential of the rhizosphere microbiome for weed control, issues such as scaling up, stability, regulatory compliance, and understanding of mechanisms still linger. Therefore, focus should be placed on synthetic microbial consortia, genome-edited strains, and the use of digital learning-based predictive models to identify site-specific microbiomes that can mitigate herbicide resistance. Microbial communities in the rhizosphere can be a very strong and possibly even an untapped source of weed control that will become hardly noticeable when they are the standard of ecologically sound, herbicide-free, and sustainable weed management systems.

Özet

The rhizosphere microbiome refers to a complex and diverse community of microorganisms inhabiting the soil surrounding the roots of plants. This community is the basis of the healthy life of plants, nutrient cycling, and ecological interactions. Recently, its role as a reservoir of natural and environment-friendly methods for weed control compared to chemical-based methods has been emphasized. This review intend to present the recent scientific findings on the use of the rhizosphere microbiome for controlling weeds. The different ways, i.e., the use of microbial inoculants, bioaugmentation, biostimulation, and the engineering of root exudates, are very efficient in weed reduction while still doing the crops' growth. The combination of omic technologies such as metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics provides new understanding of microbiome functions and makes precise microbiome engineering possible for targeted weed suppression. However, the performance of microorganisms is affected by different environmental factors like soil type, moisture content, temperature, crop rotation, and their combined effect with herbicides. While the results demonstrate the great potential of the rhizosphere microbiome for weed control, issues such as scaling up, stability, regulatory compliance, and understanding of mechanisms still linger. Therefore, focus should be placed on synthetic microbial consortia, genome-edited strains, and the use of digital learning-based predictive models to identify site-specific microbiomes that can mitigate herbicide resistance. Microbial communities in the rhizosphere can be a very strong and possibly even an untapped source of weed control that will become hardly noticeable when they are the standard of ecologically sound, herbicide-free, and sustainable weed management systems.

🔖

Cite This Article

Altop, E. K., Kaya, S. (2025). Rhizosphere Microbiome Manipulation for Weed Suppression. Black Sea Journal of Agriculture, Cilt: 9 Sayı: 1, 132–142. https://doi.org/10.47115/bsagriculture.1805709

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