2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Providing sufficient and healthy food for increasing human population brings the challenge of increasing crop production while diminishing environmental damage. Interest in the use of biologicals to help achieve this by cereal and legume farmers, with large farming operations and sensitive returns, motivated the research to provide a concentrated mycorrhizae fungi inoculant for seed coating. Seed coating effectively guarantees treatment on every seed, decreasing the cost and labor of using biologicals in large scale farming operations. A finished product composed of mycorrhizal fungi propagules from in vivo culture was the first step in ensuring appropriate concentration for seed coating practices. Mykos Gold SC was tested with Sakata Seed America’s coating technologies evaluating the effects of the blend in seed germination, seedling development, and root colonization on different crops selected by partners. The use of mycorrhizal fungi seed coating blend did not have adverse effects on seed germination. Initial observations of seedlings reveal slight increase in the measured variables at the time of evaluation. Research revealed it is feasible for mycorrhizae to inoculate a plant through conventional seed coating processes with the appropriate concentration and infectivity of mycorrhizal fungi, in addition to applying coating technologies that are compatible with biology.