Dr. A. Kumar attended mICROPe2019 in Vienna, Austria and presented his team’s work on “Comparative spermosphere and phyllosphere microbiome of rice reveals core microbiota with antagonistic potential against foliar pathogens”. The symposium was organized by AUSTRIAN ASSOCIATION OF MOLECULAR LIFE SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY (ÖGMBT) BASED AT HELMUT QUALTINGER GASSE 2, STIEGE 02, EG L.01, 1030 WIEN. While Prof. Steven Lindow – an authority on Phyllosphere Microbiome, delivered key note opening lecture on Assembly of epiphytic bacterial communities on plants and their interactions with the plant host: insights for managing the plant microbiome, the closing keynote on Towards new road MAPs to engineer plant microbiomes was delivered by Jos Raaijmakers (NIOO-KNAW, NL) during symposium in Vienna.

The scientific deliberation were mostly on functional validation of microbiomes and their effects on most desirable agronomic such as yield, quality attributes like biotic and abiotic tolerance, market related quality and nutritional aspects. Scientific discourses and discussions during the symposium have benefited him and NAHEP project by improving awareness about the recent developments in the area of plant microbiomes, bio-formulation development for the benefit. The symposium also provided an opportunity to learn about recent advances formulation technology, and biosafety issues.

A total of 303 delegates representing 35 countries took part in the symposium. Range of topics right from microbiome profiling to microbiome commercialization was discussed and deliberated during the four days of event.