In its first full year of field trials, the BioAg Alliance — Novozymes’ and Monsanto’s collaboration to improve soil health and harvest through naturally-occurring microorganisms — reported that of the top 10 microbial strains tested in corn and soybeans, average yield increases were four bushels per acre for corn and two bushels per acre for soybeans.
The results are positive given the strong backdrop of overall record crop yields in 2014.
“For microbial performance, which typically stands out under more stressed conditions, this type of benefit in favorable growing conditions is very promising,” says Colin Bletsky, Novozymes vice president. “These technologies have significant potential to support continued advancements in modern agriculture and help meet growing global demand for food. They help farmers produce more crops with fewer inputs.”
Novozymes and Monsanto conducted more than 170,000 trials across hundreds of microbial strains in 2014 and plan to expand trials in 2015. The partners also continue to collaborate with and evaluate third-party microbial technologies in addition to those under development by the companies.
