Western Canadian farmers are already familiar with the benefits of rhizobia bacteria, the yield-boosting bacteria that work with legume crops to convert gaseous nitrogen to a form that is more available to the plant.
What farmers might not know is that rhizobia bacteria are just one of the so-called “agricultural biologicals” that are commercially available today.
The use of agricultural biologicals is growing each year with an expanding range of biological products expected to play an increasingly important role in food production, according to some observers.
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Phillip Stephan, vice-president of agriculture biotechnology at the Saskatchewan Research Council in Saskatoon, said research in the area of crop biologicals is growing as academics and private sector crop input companies look for new ways to boost plant productivity and increase yields.
“The scope of plant biologics is pretty broad but the most familiar would be crop inoculants … so rhizobium-based crop inoculants that are routinely applied to legume crops to aid in nitrogen fixation,” said Stephan.
“That’s probably the most common or most recognized example of a crop biologic but biologics themselves are a very broad field that would (include) biopesticides, bioherbicides, plant endophytes and other types of products,” he said.
“But what they all have in common is that they all have a microbial component, so it all comes down to the interaction between a plant and a microbe or a population of microbes.”
According to Stephan, the Saskatchewan Research Council is working with academic researchers and biotech companies to develop and commercialize new crop biological products that have the ability to boost yields using natural and environmentally sustainable inputs.
Recent advances in metagenomics and bioprospecting have allowed researchers to identify potentially beneficial micro-organisms that can be isolated and used by commercial farmers, either as seed coatings, foliar sprays or soil amendments.
Stephan said interest in crop biologics has grown significantly over the past few years.
Researchers are learning more about the way that naturally occurring microbes can interact with plants.
When testing potential new microbial products, researchers and product developers are mindful of the potential interactions, either good or bad, between biologicals and synthetic crop inputs, such as chemical sprays, fungicides and fertilizers.
After all, there’s no sense in spending extra money on a biological input if the microbes it contains are either neutralized or destroyed when other inputs, such as chemical pesticides or fungicides are applied.
Before choosing to use a biological product, grain farmers should inquire about efficacy of the biologicals, as well as potential negative interactions with other crop inputs, including those that are synthetically produced.
“If you’re a commercial farmer, you want to make sure you dig into the data,” said Stephan.
“Make sure that there’s adequate field data, just as you would with any other type of crop input. Ask yourself, ‘does this product really pass the data test and is there enough evidence to prove that this microbe is going to confer the advantages that are being claimed, based on actual, hard data?’ “
Stephan said companies selling crop biological products need to have hard data, based on well-designed field trials, to gain regulatory approvals for the products they are marketing.
Hard data should also be part of the company’s marketing pitch, he said.
