Biome Makers and Syngenta Crop Protection are teaming team up to address soil health in agriculture.
Biome Makers BeCrop technology is used across the globe to deliver insights into soil biology. Syngenta’s R&D-led LIVINGRO program will utilize BeCrop to make science-based decisions that support the production of safe, healthy food while preserving and improving biodiversity and soil quality in agricultural ecosystems.
LIVINGRO is a platform that assesses biodiversity and soil health parameters in farming ecosystems, fostering scientific research in regenerative farming protocols to help growers improve on-farm biodiversity and safeguarding soils for future generations. According to Gina Swart, global head of product biology disease control at Syngenta, this is accomplished in collaboration with globally recognized biodiversity, ecology, soil science and agronomy specialists.
“Anybody can sequence the DNA of the soil microbiome and produce vast amounts of data through next generation sequencing,” notes Swart. “The real value is in understanding what the data shows and what you do with those insights. Biome Makers’ BeCrop technology makes sense of the data and generates actionable soil health metrics. This data is highly valuable to our customers as it enables them to produce more sustainably while revitalizing soil functionality and improving soil health.”
According to Biome Makers, its BeCrop technology has the largest global database of 10M taxonomic references of soil microorganisms from more than 120 crops using proprietary DNA sequencing workflow and intelligent computing to decode soil biology. One of the distinctive benefits of BeCrop is how it can translate complex data into user-friendly and actionable reports.
Alberto Acedo, PhD., co-founder and CSO of Biome Makers, notes that collaborations like LIVINGRO are important to advance towards real personalized agriculture. “It is also vital to restore the balance of the ecology of our soils and reduce the risk of diseases and malnutrition for plants growing on imbalanced soils.”
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