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The NDSU Extension weekly podcast In the Pod: Soybean Updates delivers timely insights and expert advice on soybean production.
You're listening to In The Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. There are bad bacteria and good bacteria in a farmer's field. Barney Geddes, NDSU microbiological sciences assistant professor, is recruiting the good guys. Barney, first, what do you do at NDSU?
Barney Geddes:I'm an assistant professor in the department of plant pathology, microbiology, and biotechnology. So unlike many of our department who are looking at the problematic relationships plants have with microbes, for me, I'm trying to think about the ones that can actually benefit our crops and how to harness those as tools for farmers to improve yields and sustainability on the farm.
Bruce Sundeen:How does this impact soybeans?
Barney Geddes:This ends up focusing a lot on bacteria that fix nitrogen for the plants that can help reduce the pressure on chemical fertilization on the farm. So these are called rhizobia. And soybeans form root nodules that house these bacteria and can support that nitrogen fixing relationship. And so we try to think about that relationship, how farmers are trying to maximize that relationship on the farm, and what we can do with our research into the biology of that relationship to try to improve it and maximize the amount of nitrogen fixation happening through this remarkable symbiosis. At the same time, we think about other things microbes can do, and there's scope in different spaces for that as well. And so one in particular that the North Dakota Soybean Council has funded for the last several years has been a focus on iron deficiency chlorosis, and we've sought out microbes that can help reduce IDC that maybe could be packaged with rhizobia. Farmers are able to buy as inoculants and add products onto their seeds at the time of planting to try to take advantage of these sort of beneficial relationships.
Bruce Sundeen:Do you have a goal in mind that directly affects farmers?
Barney Geddes:One of the things we're looking into is where are the gaps or the inefficiencies in the technologies that farmers have today? We're really passionate about trying to understand how to improve the efficacy of products to maximize these relationships, to make sure that when a farmer applies a product, they're getting the benefit from that product that they expect. So if if it's supposed to reduce IDC, it's doing a good job at that. If it's supposed to fix nitrogen, it's doing a good job at that. There is a lot of complexity going on in a farmer's soil that they may not be aware of when they're applying these products. And so one of the main angles in my research program at NDSU that we've taken on this is trying to think about an attribute called competitiveness. So this has to do with how well, when you apply a biological, that particular organism colonizes your crop, and particularly competes against other microbes to colonize that crop. So there are millions of microbes that colonize plant roots, and a product that might reduce IDC needs to actually find its niche within that microbiome and survive there and and thrive there across the growing season in order to have benefit. Although most farmers probably pull up a soybean and they check for nodules, and if they're there and they're nice and big and pink, they're happy, not all rhizobia are created equal that would make those nodules. Most of our soils now in North Dakota, because we've been cultivating soybeans for several years, will form nodules with rhizobia, whether or not we apply products. However, the rhizobia that colonize those nodules might not be efficient at fixing nitrogen. And so we're trying to understand now those populations in our fields as they exist, and whether they're less efficient than the microbes we'd like to apply and get to fix the nitrogen in association with our plant, then how can we make sure that when we do apply rhizobia, that those are the ones that actually form the nodules on your crop, and not those natural ones from the soil that might be suboptimal? And that's really a central long term aim of my program, is to have products that reliably colonize the crop when they're used, that have this kind of maximal possible benefit. Really, we're trying to just reduce the pressure on chemical inputs on the farm. And if we can fix more nitrogen with those nodules by making them more efficient, it's gonna leave more behind for the next crop. It's gonna reduce the pressure when you go to plant corn. You have to put these large amounts of nitrogen on, which in times like these can be very, very expensive.
Bruce Sundeen:Barney, how close are you to having products for soybean farmers?
Barney Geddes:Yeah. So full disclosure, I've also been involved in starting a company called Lilac Agriculture in this space, and this company is really there to help translate the work that we're doing at NDSU to try to find better biology for inoculant products. That's been a great vessel through which we're hoping to get these impacts directly to farmers and and actually able to be purchased and tried on the farm in the next few years.
Bruce Sundeen:Thanks, Barney. Our guest has been Barney Geddes, NDSU microbiological sciences assistant professor. You're listening to In the Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension, supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council.