Selective control of fall armyworm in turfgrass

The need to reduce pesticide usage in agriculture has received increasing attention in recent years. Fall Armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera Frugiperda (J.E. Smith), is regarded as one of the most devastating noctuid pests in the world. FAW larvae are especially detrimental to turfgrass because they feed on turfgrass foliage. They destroy turfgrass. Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) refer to bacteria in the rhizosphere that rapidly colonized roots, promote growth, and increase yield of agricultural crops. PGPRs can enhance plant growth through a variety of mechanisms from phosphate solubilization to induction of systemic resistance against plant pathogens. In this talk, we report on engineering dual function turfgrass PGPRs. Our goal is to engineer selective control of FAW larvae in turfgrass colonizing endophytes. We achieve our goal using two methods. The first being, engineering turfgrass-specific endophytes to express Cry proteins. Cry proteins are insect toxins expressed on plasmids of Bacillus thuringiensis. These proteins bind to specific receptors within the target insect’s midgut causing midgut cell death. We also screened various PGPR libraries for strains that exhibit insecticidal behavior against FAW larvae and further optimized these strains for efficient herbivore killing.