4 minute read
Back to the Future: Sustainable Agriculture Using Soil Microbiology
BY COLIN BELL, PHD., PETER BAAS, PHD., MATTHEW D WALLENSTEIN PHD.
Sustainable farming is the future of agriculture. The greatest challenge facing indoor and outdoor cultivators is maximizing food and medicinal crop production (to meet growing population demands) while minimizing environmental impacts. Agriculture management must meet the current needs of farmers without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Only recently have new technologies allowed indoor and outdoor cultivators to achieve sustainable management practices which are practical for large-scale cultivation facilities. Successful producers must deliver a suite of critical factors to maximize their crop success (and value); including solar energy, energy-intensive climate controls, and plant nutrition. Over the last decade, indoor cultivators have started to adopt more efficient LED lighting and solar power technologies to minimize the environmental impacts of traditional ‘on-grid’ energy costs. Likewise, the surge in microbial biotech solutions for agriculture has quickly evolved over the last decade into mainstream cultivation practices – including cannabis.
On a global scale, using precision microbial solutions in agriculture management has been identified as the single fastest-growing sustainable technology across every major crop, allowing farmers to increase plant nutrient use efficiency. From a scientific perspective, using microbes in agriculture is biologically very intuitive. Under natural selection, plants have evolved with soil microbes for over 700 million years by fostering beneficial rhizosphere (root zone) microbial interactions to augment their success. Precision microbial solutions for agriculture (referred to as microbial biostimulants in general agriculture, and beneficial bacteria in the cannabis industry) refers to the deployment of defined soil bacterial and fungal species that effectively stimulate plant growth. Microbes can help plants take up more nutrients, accelerate growth, and resist disease through chemical signaling. As a result, using precision microbial solutions allow cultivators to improve crop yield and quality in terms of medicinal and nutritional value while reducing their chemical inputs.
On a global scale, using precision microbial solutions in agriculture management has been identified as the single fastest-growing sustainable technology across every major crop
The three main plant cycles that cultivators typically target to incorporate precision microbial inputs include early rooting, vegetative, and flowering growth stages. Using powerful new research tools, scientists are starting to reveal the different mechanisms driven by plant-microbe interactions to stimulate plant growth across the growing season. For the remainder of this article, we will specifically focus on how precision biological solutions can enhance cannabis yield and quality during the flowering stage.
One mechanism that microbes use to maximize plant quality and yield is nutrient cycling. Soil microbes facilitate essential macronutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K). Plants must have access to these macronutrients across the entire growing season to reach their growth potential. Although plants require a relatively large amount of N during the earlier part of vegetative growth, this importance turns towards P and K in the later plant flowering growth stages. Flowering is the most critical stage of growth to maximize harvestable yield and quality. Using specialized soil microbes, cultivators can help boost plant P and K uptake; thus enabling cannabis plants to develop tighter internodal spacing and more flower development.
Soil microbes facilitate essential macronutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K).
Using precision microbial solutions can improve cannabis yield in four distinct ways:
1. Microbes can enhance P availability. Plants require phosphorous for many important biomolecules including cell wall syntheses and DNA structure. Phosphorous is notorious for being challenging to deliver to plants. Up to 70% of the P fertilizer added to soil and soilless media can become almost immediately unavailable to plants after it is applied. Microbes act as specialized tools to liberate bound P into bioavailable forms to maximize plant P uptake.
2. Microbes can enhance K availability. Plants require potassium across the entire growing season. Potassium is involved with enzyme activation within the plant, which affects protein, starch, and ATP production. Potassium also controls water flow in and out of cells and helps regulate the opening and closing of the stomata, which governs the exchange of water vapor, oxygen, and carbon dioxide.
3. Beneficial soil microbes can produce enzymes and chemical signaling molecules which naturally cycle P and K in organic systems. Enzyme presence has also been shown to significantly reduce shock for plants in stressful conditions during transplanting and temperature fluctuation.
4. Soil bacteria produce organic signaling compounds which stimulate plant immune response against pathogens.
Precision microbial solutions can enhance the plant’s ability to synthesize terpenes and cannabinoid groups:
1. Microbes help plants maximize P uptake for terpene and cannabinoid synthesis. All cannabinoids (such as THC and CBD) and terpenes are produced through different plant biosynthesis pathways. Plants require large amounts of phosphorous-rich compounds such as adenosine triphosphate (which is the high energy molecule) to help plants biosynthesize these molecules. (Note: The precursor for all cannabinoids is the synthesis of CBGA. Plant terpenes are synthesized through two pathways: 1) the methylerythritol phosphate pathway (MEP) and 2) the cytosolic mevalonate pathway (MEV)).
2. Microbes can also stimulate the biosynthesis of different cannabinoids and terpenes through chemical signaling as they interact with plant roots within the rhizosphere zone.
Sustainable agriculture is the future. We are just beginning to harness natural microbial processes to enhance crop performance efficiently. Using precision microbial solutions in agriculture represents the next generation of sustainable technologies that can help cultivators achieve the desired crop quality and yield. The future of sustainable agriculture relies on utilizing the power of microbial solutions to support plant success - thus bringing nature back to agriculture.
BIO
Colin Bell is the co-founder, co-inventor and Chief Growth Officer at Mammoth Microbes. Colin is passionate about science, and received his PhD. in Biological Sciences, specializing in soil microbial ecology and plant-microbe interactions. He left his academic position at Colorado State University in March 2015 to launch Mammoth Microbes. When he’s not traveling the world interacting with and learning from cultivators, there is nothing Colin enjoys more than teaching and working with the team at Mammoth Microbes. You can find Colin on Instagram: @colinwbell
Peter Baas is Mammoth Microbes’ Director of Product Development. He has worked in a wide range of ecosystems and has an advanced understanding of the interactions and complexities among microbial ecology, nutrient cycling, and plant growth. He has a PhD. in ecology from the University of Georgia and is very excited about developing and testing new products with the goal of making agricultural practices more sustainable for future generations.
Matt Wallenstein is the co-founder, co-inventor, and chairman at Mammoth Microbes. He has a PhD. in Ecology from Duke University and is the head of the Soil and Crop Sciences department at Colorado State University. Matt’s research has focused on the role of microbiomes in critical ecosystem processes, and how microbes adapt to environmental change. Much of his current focus is on managing and engineering rhizosphere microbiomes to enhance sustainable agriculture.
