Investigating the potential for cricket frass to increase drought tolerance across crops

Entomo Farms是一家昆虫养殖公司，生产用于宠物食品、蛋白粉和可食用零食的粉虫和蟋蟀。虫粪是农业生产过程中产生的一种废物。初步证据支持禾草作为有机肥料的有益利用，具有增强作物耐旱性的潜在能力。因此，提供一种有机肥料是一个商业化的机会，它具有增强作物耐旱性的附加能力，这是许多小型和大型生产者面临的一个共同问题。Entomo Farms面临的问题是，为了将蟋蟀草作为作物耐旱性增强剂进行商业化，该公司需要确定蟋蟀草是否能提高作物的耐旱性，如果不同作物也能提高耐旱性，以及需要多少添加率才能获得这些耐旱性效益。因此，Entomo农场希望与新斯科舍省社区学院合作，调查这些未知因素。预期的结果将使Entomo农场受益，因为它提供了科学证据，表明他们的牧草如何提高作物的抗旱性。这些信息将用于销售他们的草作为有机肥料产品，可以减轻干旱的影响，导致更多的产品销售，因为增加了抗旱效益。该项目将使加拿大受益，为农民和普通消费者提供有机肥料的选择，以替代制造/合成肥料，同时提高作物的抗旱性。

Entomo Farms is an insect farming company that produces mealworms and crickets for pet food, proteinpowder, and edible snacks. Insect frass (manure) is a waste product produced as part of the farming process. Preliminary evidence supports the beneficial use of frass as an organic fertilizer, with the potential ability toenhance crop drought tolerance. Thus, there is a commercialization opportunity to offer an organic fertilizer, with the added ability to enhance crop drought tolerance, a common problem faced by many small- andlarge-scale producers. The issue that Entomo Farms faces is that to commercialize their frass as a crop drought tolerance enhancer, the company needs to determine if cricket frass increases crop drought tolerance, ifenhanced drought tolerance also occurs across different crops, and what addition rates are needed to obtainthese drought tolerance benefits. As a result, Entomo Farms would like to collaborate with Nova ScotiaCommunity College to investigate these unknowns. Anticipated results will benefit Entomo Farms byproviding scientific evidence indicating how their frass increases crop drought tolerance. This information will be used to market their frass as an organic fertilizer product that can mitigate the impact of drought, leading to more product sales because of the added drought tolerance benefit. The project will benefit Canada byproviding an organic fertilizer option to farmers and general consumers looking for alternatives tomanufactured/synthetic fertilizers that can also enhance crop drought tolerance.