Trace Genomics and Verdesian to bring verified nutrient use solutions to agriculture

Date:06-22-2022

Trace Genomics and Verdesian Life Sciences have entered into a multi-phase partnership agreement that will use the cutting-edge power of soil DNA analysis (metagenomics) to validate, verify and position biological products for nutrient management.

Nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are essential for the growth of all plants and often need to be applied to agricultural soils in the form of fertilizers. When traditional chemical fertilizers are overused, excessive nutrients leach into waterways, which causes environmental damage on top of the economic loss. Additionally, fertilizer application is a significant cause of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture. Verdesian Life Sciences has created a state-of-the-art portfolio of products for a variety of crops that focus on the retention of nutrients in the soil and the addition of biological components for optimal nutrient efficiency.

“At Verdesian, our top priority is sustainability through the efficient management of soil nutrients.” said Kuide Qin, Verdesian’s Chief Science Officer. “Our partnership with Trace Genomics helps us better understand how and where our biological solutions work most effectively so we can deliver winning solutions to our farmers.”

Trace Genomics uses the power of their proprietary DNA database and computational pipeline called TESS™ (Trace Environmental Soil System) to reveal not only what microorganisms are present in a soil sample, but also their environmental roles as nutrient cyclers. By taking the biological as well as the chemical profile of soil into consideration, Trace is able to validate the impact of nutrient products, and inform optimal nutrient products to use in individualized situations.

“High-performance biological solutions cannot be developed without soil intelligence,” said Poornima Parameswaran, Co-founder, and President of Trace Genomics. “By combining our expertise in genomics, advanced soil sciences and machine learning, with Verdesian’s biological solutions, we are measuring and modeling the entire soil environment to create the next-generation of validated nutrient use solutions.”

The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.