The work of Jenny Kao-Kniffin and her team is featured in an article on the Cornell Research website, Ecosystems of Plant Roots and Soils.
Kao-Kniffin’s groundbreaking studies look at the effect of manipulating the bacteria, fungi, and soil that surround plant roots, and how that manipulation can help control weeds and increase crop yields.
“I think this way of modifying the ecosystem by altering microbiome functions has a lot of potential in the future. We need to get away from this routine of relying on genetically modified crops and their paired herbicides,” she says.