SBIR Phase I: A NOVEL BIORATIONAL, VERSATILE PRODUCT TO ENHANCE CROP YIELDS AND RESISTANCE TO STRESSES

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to provide a new class of biorational chemicals (based on chemical communicants from plant symbiotic fungi) that provide season-long improvements in plant productivity including enhanced root growth, resistance to a variety of stresses including drought, and increases in plant yield. This system will be developed for delivery as a seed treatment or as an augmented fertilizer. The novel products will be sold to famers through already-developed delivery systems primarily through agricultural distributors and seed companies. They are expected to increase plant root development, crop yields and tolerance/resistance to drought and other adverse conditions. The products can be used equally well by large and sophisticated farmers and seed companies, including those using advanced plant genetic traits, but is also adaptable to smaller growers since the input costs to users will be less than competitive technologies for especially coping with adverse environmental stresses. These tools and advances will assist is overcoming the adverse effects of climate change and provide technologies to maximize scarce water resources. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to formulate the active chemicals to provide user-friendly products for delivery in suitable agricultural systems including seed treatments and augmented fertilizers, and to evaluate prototype products on their advantages in the greenhouse, pilot scale and field trial systems. The field trials will be conducted under conditions of drought stress and will permit measurement of water use efficiency of conventional and advanced drought tolerant corn hybrids in the presence and absence of the new products, and will provide a means to determine the mechanism by which the active chemicals provide improvements in plant performance. This third goal is essential since the chemicals as applied are present only during seed germination, but enhance plant performance throughout the season. The formulations are based on novel systems that will sequester volatile active chemicals but release them only when seeds are germinating. The plant performance characteristics that will be measured include enhanced root development throughout the season, enhanced yield parameters under water limiting conditions, and measure water use efficiency.