Crop Inputs You Can’t See — The Coming Wave of Microbe-Based Products

What does every farmer want out of a crop? Yield and profitability. From variety selection, to fertilizer rates, and crop protection products, farmers are always looking for new ways to stack the deck in their favour. Of course, the best laid plans can be thwarted by a cold, wet spring, or dry weather and drought.

Plant breeders select for varieties that perform well under variable conditions and stress, but there’s a whole new world of crop input products that’s seeking to do the same by identifying soil microbes that help a plant grow faster or more robust or to tolerate specific stresses.

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Recently, RealAgriculture’s founder Shaun Haney attended AgTech Week, in San Francisco, and spoke with Marcus Meadows-Smith, from BioConsortia, about the potential role of microbe-based seed treatments and dressings.

From how microbes work with plants, to the microbe-identification and evaluation process, to how soon farmers could be using these seed treatments and dressings, Meadows-Smith describes this exciting new world of crop input products.

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