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Ninety-Nine Farmers
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We were fortunate to connect with collaborators that lived in Rajasthan, India, one of the hottest dryest regions in India. With the help of a grant from USAID, under their Securing Water for Food program, we coordinated field trials with 99 farmers around the remote village of Khedi-Sheela. They wanted to test our microbial product BioEnsure on their crops. These growers are dependent on seasonal rain from monsoons to water their crops, so water is never guaranteed from season to season.
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They assessed the performance of our fungal endophytes on many local crops including bajra, millet, guar, sesame, mung and wheat. Harvests are used for family sustenance, animal fodder and carryover seed for the following year's planting.
In the first season we treated 1,300 kg of seeds for farmers, primarily bajra and mung. After seed treating, farmers planted after the first rain, and we followed up with interviews and recording final yield results. The yield harvests in India surpassed our expectations with growers experiencing up to a 300% yield increase! |
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What is the key to sustainably feeding a growing population?
The concept of Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE) is foreign to many people, but critical to sustainably increasing harvest yields. Put simply NUE is defined as the ability for an agricultural system to convert inputs (fertilizers) to outputs (crop yields), in relation to the nutrient status of the system. In general, the less inputs available, the lower the crop yields produced. This formula becomes very important in rural areas where ~80% of Indian farms operate and have limited crop nutrients (fertilizers) available. So increasing efficiency means getting the same, or higher yields, with less inputs. |
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India is the 2nd largest consumer of synthetic fertilizer worldwide.
Small landholding farmers have various fertilizers they can bring to their fields, and in India it is primarily animal manures, or synthetic fertilizers such as urea and DAP. Bringing these inputs to the field is effective but it is not without potential cost. Adding synthetic fertilizer is expensive for impoverished subsistence farmers and can be polluting when not done properly. If BioEnsure can increase crop nutrient use efficiency (NUE) farmers can decrease the need for potentially polluting fertilizers. Given time this could have a huge impact in a country with ~1.4 billion people, and an estimated 137 million farms (United Nations, FAO, 2014). |
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How do we increase NUE? We knew that our fungal microbes (BioEnsure) had the ability to increase NUE in greenhouse trials, but it needed further vetting in the field. Our farm collaborators in Rajasthan where the perfect growers to test this as their fields were stressed with low nutrients and no irrigation. Their financial resources were also limited. We started with Mungbean crops, one of the most common pulses in the area. |
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Mung & Bajra Harvest Yields:
All farms show BioEnsure Only treatments do as well, or better than, Fertilizer Only treatments. This means farmers using BioEnsure get the same yield increase (or better) without the expense and potential pollution of fertilizers. |
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40 Days Without Water
The irrigation pump broke during this wheat field trial in the hot arid region of Rajasthan. These fields were subjected to 40 days without water and the difference in color and density is clear. |
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Barley Without Water Barley was planted on this farm with hopes the grower could get irrigation water from his neighbor, at a cost of 25% of yield share. Unfortunately the neighboring farmers were denied water, and had none to share for irrigation on his farm. The untreated barley is yellow and stunted, while BioEnsure treated barley is thicker and greener. |
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(Photos are taken on the same day.)
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