Vanilla is an economically important crop used for flavoring and fragrances. The vanilla "bean" isn't a bean, it is the fruit of the vanilla orchid. This project is investigating if different cultivation practices influence the associated fungi and bacteria (benefical as well as pathogens) found in the roots of vanilla orchids using NextGen sequencing approaches. The study is being undertaken as part of an international team focused on factors influencing the production of vanilla (Mueller, Johnson, and colleagues).
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