Improving strain quality and traceability in bio-fertilizer products

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A number of soil organisms are known to enhance plant growth. Prominent among those are the arbuscularmycorrhizal fungi (AMF). These organisms associate with the roots of most land plants an crops, therebyimproving their acquisition of nutrients such as phosphate and nitrate and thus improving their growth.Because of their many beneficial effects on plant yield, global companies now specialize in the production ofAMF-based inoculum to be used in organic agriculture practices. RISEHoP is a rising Canadian company inthis field that produces a new biofertilizer under the brand MYConnect, which contains an AMF strain(Rhizoglomus irregulare) not available to competition. This strain was isolated from the field by specializedscientists at RISEHoP and was shown to outperform those used by the competition in terms of plant growth.The quality and uniqueness of this strain provides RISEHoP a significant competitive advantage in thishigh-growth green industry. The collaboration between RISEHoP and the Corradi lab will offer the companyopportunities to quantify and trace their new AMF strain in the field and "in house" using DNA-based markers,and will allow the company to identify new strains that could be used to find novel optimal AMF strains thatwill further enhance their new agroproducts.