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RhizeBio offers soil testing services to growers using next generation DNA sequencing to measure the intrinsic potential of soil microbes to cycle nutrients and suppress disease.
About
Our innovation involves digitizing, decoding, and deciphering biological data in the soil using advanced DNA sequencing technology paired with predictive machine learning. With this technology, we are developing groundbreaking techniques to identify patterns for optimizing soil health in global farming environments. The RhizeBio platform will lead to the identification of low-cost, high-throughput biomarker assays that will guide grower management decisions at the point of need. We are developing models of bio-fertilizer performance across environments, to manage grower expectations and build confidence to spur product uptake and adoption among growers and retailers.
Key Benefits
Our customers are agriculture consultants (cooperatives, agriculture extension groups, or agronomists) who will use our testing services for their farming customers to track improvements in biological soil function, farmers purchasing directly from our indirect and direct sales channels, agricultural soil testing labs and bio-fertilizer and bio-input companies looking to improve product performance and certify efficacy. A critical need exists for growers to evaluate the performance of biological fertilizer inputs. Our technology will benefit farmers by providing analytical tools that can profile soil microbial communities to determine if commercial biological amendments integrate into soil and improve soil function. Ultimately, our technology will lead to an understanding of what a healthy soil microbial community looks like. By understanding the composition of healthy soil communities, it will be possible to test soil to identify gaps in community structure and prescribe remedies that fill those gaps.
Applications
1. Evaluating soil biology health over time as sustainable approaches to farming are implemented. The current report provides the following information: measurement of soil biodiversity, community evenness, mycorrhizae (i.e., beneficial organisms) community members, levels of nitrogen cycling genes, levels of phosphate cycling genes, levels of polymer degradation genes, measurements of drought resistance, disturbance, and pathogen screens. This information is used to evaluate management practices that promote regenerative soil environments. This promotes environmental stewardship and increases the natural capital with soil to provide nutritious foods and will eventually lead to lower cost to the farmer (i.e., as the natural capital within the soil improves, synthetic inputs can be reduced). 2. Future applications will include sampling devices and tests that evaluate the integration and performance of biological inputs such as commercial mycorrhiza and other beneficial microorganisms that support plant health. Without analytical tools that evaluate the performance of biological inputs, farmers are not able to evaluate the efficacy of these products. 3. The future of this technology will also lead to the identification of biomarkers that will inform on management decisions such as determining how much nutrients can be mineralized by the soil microbiome, or the development of disease suppression scores. This can lead to reduction of synthetic inputs and increased profits for the farmer.