Welcome to the Hoagland Soil Microbial Ecology Lab

The long‑term goal of our lab is to advance the growth and long‑term sustainability of local specialty crop production systems, including vegetables, herbs, and fruit. Diversifying regional agriculture with high‑value crops and integrating production into urban environments can create new economic opportunities, improve human health and well‑being, and deliver a wide range of environmental and social benefits. Realizing these benefits, however, requires farmers to overcome significant challenges: degraded or contaminated soils, the need for sustainable nutrient management, rapidly evolving pathogens, and the pressures of a changing climate. Farmers also need crop varieties that are well adapted to local conditions and capable of producing safe, nutritious, and distinctive products for the local marketplace. To help farmers meet these challenges, our lab investigates soil microbial ecology and beneficial plant–microbial interactions. Soil microbial communities drive essential agroecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, pathogen suppression, and pollutant detoxification. Many microbes also form intimate associations with plants, enhancing nutrient acquisition and increasing resilience to pathogens and abiotic stresses—including heavy metals, micro‑ and nanoplastics, drought, salinity, and heat. Recent advances in genomic tools have dramatically expanded our understanding of the diversity and abundance of soil and plant microbiomes. Yet, we still know little about how individual microbial taxa evolve and proliferate in agricultural systems, or how they mechanistically influence plant health and performance. By addressing these knowledge gaps, our lab is helping farmers identify practical strategies to foster beneficial microbes on their farms—reducing input costs, improving the safety and nutritional quality of produce, and contributing to a healthier environment.