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Using beneficial bacteria to develop a climate-smart fertilizer

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Beneficial bacteria can significantly improve the growth and yield of plants exposed to drought, as well as reduce climate-changing emissions from chemical fertilizer use.

Despite having only 0.4% of the world’s population, Canada has an extraordinarily high rate of fertilizer use. This use contributes to roughly 3% of global emissions from nitrogen-based fertilizers, which lead to nitrous oxide release—a greenhouse gas 265 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

A novel type of plant growth-promoting bacterium that lives in symbiosis with plants is forming the basis of biofertilizer for crop improvement and presents an outstanding opportunity for enhancing productivity while fostering sustainable and eco-friendly plant agriculture. Genome Canada’s investment in an Ontario-based program of research supports an industry-academia collaboration to not only develop new scientific tools, but also implement the results, including up-scaling of the manufacturing process, legal registration of the formulation and marketing of the new product. This provides an environmental and economic win for agriculture in Canada.

In partnership with Ontario Genomics

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