Spinach Seed Microbiome Characteristics Linked to Suppressiveness Against Globisporangium ultimum Damping-Off.

Recently we demonstrated that the seed microbiome of certain spinach (Spinacia oleracea) seed lots can confer disease suppression against Globisporangium ultimum damping-off (previously known as Pythium ultimum). We hypothesised that differences in the microbial community composition of spinach seed lots correlate with the levels of damping-off suppressiveness of each seed lot. Here, we show that a large proportion of variance in seed-associated bacterial (16S) and fungal (ITS1) amplicon sequences was explained by seed lot identity, while 9.