Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

A number of soil organisms are known to enhance plant growth. Prominent among those are the arbuscularx000D
mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). These organisms associate with the roots of most land plants an crops, therebyx000D
improving their acquisition of nutrients such as phosphate and nitrate and thus improving their growth.x000D
Because of their many beneficial effects on plant yield, global companies now specialize in the production ofx000D
AMF-based inoculum to be used in organic agriculture practices. RISEHoP is a rising Canadian company inx000D
this field that produces a new biofertilizer under the brand MYConnect, which contains an AMF strainx000D
(Rhizoglomus irregulare) not available to competition. This strain was isolated from the field by specializedx000D
scientists at RISEHoP and was shown to outperform those used by the competition in terms of plant growth.x000D
The quality and uniqueness of this strain provides RISEHoP a significant competitive advantage in thisx000D
high-growth green industry. The collaboration between RISEHoP and the Corradi lab will offer the companyx000D
opportunities to quantify and trace their new AMF strain in the field and "in house" using DNA-based markers,x000D
and will allow the company to identify new strains that could be used to find novel optimal AMF strains thatx000D
will further enhance their new agroproducts.