Plants are becoming increasingly understood as a dynamic system of constituent organs and communities of microbes housed by these structures.  The traditional agronomic approach has largely overlooked the importance of the interaction between plants and their associated microbes – only focusing on the emergence of diseases from these microbiomes.  By implementing a holistic agronomic approach, growers are able to tailor all of their inputs, not just pesticides, to positively manipulate the activity of the plant and its microbiomes. This enables growers to exploit natural processes that create effective barriers to exclude and combat pathogens without reliance on curative chemical fungicides – avoiding infection and facilitating quicker and stronger plant growth. This preventative approach, therefore, reduces input costs whilst ensuring crop success – enabling both environmentally and financially sustainable crop production.