We are working on the development  of chemical-independent alternative soil fumigation procedures for the control of soil-borne plant pathogenic agents. In these effort we also are exploring the utility of organic amendments to enhance both microbial diversity and metabolic activity of the soil microbial community which, in turn, limits the population of key phytopathogenic agents. Towards this end we are exploiting the power of metagenomics analysis to aid us in our understanding of microbiome perturbations affected by these cultural practices and how the microbial community composition is related to disease incidence caused by key pathogens.