Patent ID: 9732336
Date: 2017-08-15
CPC Classifications: A01H,A01N,C12N

Claim:
1. A method for deriving a microbial community, enriched for spore-forming microbes that are associated with imparting a beneficial phenotypic trait to a plant, comprising: a) growing a plurality of plants in a growth medium, in the presence of a first microbial community; b) selecting at least one plant from said plurality, following step a), based upon a beneficial phenotypic trait exhibited by the plant relative to other plants of said plurality; c) acquiring a second microbial community from the at least one plant selected in step b); d) repeating steps a) to c) in an iterative manner, wherein the second microbial community acquired in step c) is used as an inoculum in step a) of any successive repeat; and e) acquiring a microbial community enriched for spore-forming microbes that is associated with imparting a beneficial phenotypic trait to a plant, wherein the first and/or second microbial community is treated with a composition or exposed to a condition that enriches the first and/or second microbial community for selective survival of spore-forming microbes over other microbes.