Phosphorus (P) is critical for maximizing crop yields because it is an essential nutrient for plant photosynthesis and ATP production, but P availability is limited in most agricultural soils. Rock phosphate mined for fertilizer is a finite resource, and all current P application management strategies are highly inefficient. For instance, 70-90% of P applied to soils can become almost immediately unavailable for plant uptake. As a result, plant-available P can be limiting even in soils that are relatively P-rich and/or heavily fertilized. Farmers are also looking for ways to increase plant nutrient uptake and crop yields with lower cost. The team?s proposed technology provides an innovative approach that can meet these farmer?s needs by maximizing plant nutrient uptake from the soil while allowing for reduced fertilizer inputs.
Microbes play a critical role in solubilizing mineral P so that it is available to plants. While there is great potential to improve microbial P solubilization, progress in developing microbial solutions has been largely limited to the identification of single strains through outdated culturing techniques, despite strong demonstrated evidence that microbial consortia are required to maximize P solubilization rates. The primary objective of this project is to advance the development and commercialization of optimized phosphorus (P)-solubilizing microbial consortia. Specifically, the team will demonstrate that: their novel approach rapidly identifies optimized consortia; and their proprietary selection media yields novel P solubilizing microbes that are superior at making soil P available to plants compared to previously identified strains. The project team is interested in developing a start-up company to translate this discovery into a commercial product. They will conduct market research, including extensive interviews with potential users (crop producers) and clients (agricultural corporations) to define value propositions, as well as explore business plan options and potential funding sources.
With previous NSF support, our team developed an organic soil supplement that naturally enhances plant growth. This I-Corps award allowed us to examine whether this invention was suitable for commericailization, identify the best product-market fit, and learn about customer problems that our product solves. While we initially felt our product could improve large-scale agriculture, we learned that our product does not neccesarily address the most pressing needs of those farmers, and that there are many challenges to reaching that market. Through interviewing over 100 potential customers, we identified the home lawn and garden customer segment as one that would benefit from our product. Phosphorus (P) has been banned from fertilizers in many states because of concerns about runoff. After a few years, lawn health can deteriorate as a result of P defficiency. Our product releases the P that is bound to soil and makes it available to plants. This course gave us the tools to objectively evaluate all aspects of commercialization. We are now actively encouraging other scientists to consider commercialization or private-public partnerships to help translate basic science into actionable knowledge. As a result of this award, we have founded a venture-backed company called Growcentia. Our goal is to grow healthier crops with lower environmental impact through improved soil health. Thus, this award has supported job creation, the transfer of technology to the private sector, and improved crop security.
