Research has shown that soil-borne beneficial microorganisms can enhance plant growth, productivity, and resistance against pests and pathogens and could thus serve as a sustainable alternative to agrochemicals. To date, however, the effect of soil-beneficial microbes under commercial crop production has been little assessed. We here investigated the effect of root inoculation with nine well-characterized bacterial and fungal strains and two consortia on tomato performance under intensive tomato crop management practices. We measured the impact of these root inoculations on plant growth, fruit quality, yield, and pest and pathogen incidence. While most microbial strains showed weak effects, we found that the fungal strains Trichoderma afroharzianum T22 and Funneliformis mosseae significantly increased marketable tomato yield. Moreover, we found that inoculation with most of the fungal strains led to a significant reduction in the incidence of the devastating leaf-mining pest Tuta absoluta, while this effect was not observed for bacterial inoculants. In addition, we found that microbial inoculations did not impact the incidence of introduced natural pest enemies, supporting their compatibility with well-established integrated pest management strategies in horticulture. In summary, the observed general positive effects of soil microbes on tomato yield and resistance reinforce the move toward broader adoption of microbial inoculants in future crop production, ultimately improving agricultural sustainability.

研究表明，土壤传播的有益微生物可以增强植物生长、生产力和对害虫和病原体的抵抗力，因此可以作为农用化学品的可持续替代品。然而，迄今为止，对土壤有益的微生物对经济作物生产的影响几乎没有得到评估。我们在这里研究了在密集番茄作物管理实践下，用 9 种特征明确的细菌和真菌菌株以及 2 个联盟进行根系接种对番茄性能的影响。我们测量了这些根系接种对植物生长、果实质量、产量以及病虫害和病原体发病率的影响。虽然大多数微生物菌株表现出微弱的效果，但我们发现真菌菌株 Trichoderma afroharzianum T22 和 Funneliformis mosseae 显着提高了适销番茄的产量。此外，我们发现接种大多数真菌菌株导致毁灭性落叶害虫 Tuta absoluta 的发生率显着降低，而细菌接种剂则没有观察到这种效果。此外，我们发现微生物接种不会影响引入的天然害虫敌人的发生率，支持它们与园艺中成熟的综合害虫管理策略的兼容性。总之，观察到的土壤微生物对番茄产量和抗性的一般积极影响加强了在未来作物生产中更广泛采用微生物接种剂的趋势，最终提高农业可持续性。