b"Jeffrey Dangl, the John N. Couch distinguished professor of biology and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in his lab with lab manager Theresa Law.There are a lot of complexities we're grappling with aboutdefense response to repel pathogenic microbes. Or, treating how you develop communities, how you manipulate them and howwith a biological can initiate a different kind of critical plant you make them work in a real setting, but its exciting for sure,response. Leach says. In my rhizobia example, instead of having to recruit those rhizobia naturally in the soil and then have them proliferate to CURRENT REALITY form a module, you're flooding the seed and, once it emerges, The challenges of invasion and persistence doesnt mean biologi- the root with the bacteria. So, youre just upping the frequency of cals on the market today arent effective.some event that you know needs to happen with or without you. Sure, some of them are clearly snake oil. But many of themEven if its a short-term gain, thats a critical gain, says Dangl.do work under particular settings or under particular conditions,That said, were not yet at the point of most biologicals Leach says.persisting in the soil and delivering long-term benefit. In other In some cases, a short-term biological gain is itself sufficientwords, even if a biological offers proven efficacy in theory, it may benefit. For example, coating a seed with the soil bacteria thatlack return on investment in practice, Dangl says.are associated with the primary plant growth regulators auxin,If you think about biologicals for things like fungal con-ethylene and cytokinin could get that seed off to a stronger start,trol, you may end up spraying 10 times a season because the potentially helping the resulting plant survive its most vulnerablebacteriaeven if theyre very effective at enhancing fungal germination and emergence stage.resistancesimply don't make it long enough to give you the In other cases, a microbes benefit is that it stimulates a plantsprotection that you need, Dangl says.FEBRUARY 2025|SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPEISEED WORLD EUROPE I 21"