Adam Abbott is the National Operations Manager at SoiLife. His research paper about Customised Hemp Growth Promotion demonstrates how beneficial soil rhizosphere microbes and biofertilisers can significantly assist plants in growth.
Adam Abbott is a Hempcrete Educator and more. As an Environmental Scientist he deeply understands the importance of hemp and now it can change the world for the better.
Contact Name: Adam Abbott
Business Name: SoiLife Group Pty Ltd
Website: SoiLife.com.au
Summary
Beneficial soil rhizosphere microbes and biofertilisers, such as the SoiLife product, provide biodiverse microbiomes that can significantly assist plants in growth promotion. This trial into Customised Hemp Growth Promotion on hemp varieties has determined the most effective soil-microbe combinations that are both, compatible to the farm soil and the varieties used. The three varieties tested, Mountain Mango, ACDC, and Maverick, displayed different preferences for plant growth promoting rhizosphere bacteria-SoiLife combinations.
Mountain Mango leaf growth and fresh weight yields significantly (p<0.05) increased up to 19.3% and 28.9%, respectively, compared to mock-treated control plants, following application of the SL-6D SoiLife product. For ACDC, the highest increase in fresh weight was achieved with SL-46 (66.6%), and SL-67 applications also achieved significant (p<0.05) leaf growth promotion (33.3%). Maverick yield increases ranged from 4.8% to 23.0% compared to mock-treated control plants, with the most significant (p<0.05) increase achieved for the SL-8 SoiLife product resulting in 18.6% increased leaf growth and 23.0% higher leaf fresh weight at time of harvesting. We therefore recommend using SL-6D for Mountain Mango, SL-46 for ACDC, and SL-8 for Maverick, at the farm whose soil-microbe-variety combinations were tested.
The full paper can be found here.
Background and Rationale
Customised Hemp Growth Promotion or Soil rhizobacteria can provide significant benefits to plants by promoting growth and defending against pathogens. This is achieved by fixing nitrogen from the air, solubilising phoshorous that plants cannot normally access, producing siderophores for iron supply, producing plant growth hormones (e.g. auxin), priming plants for systemic induced resistance and producing a range of antimicrobial compounds that assist plants to defend themselves against pathogens.
However, not all soil bacteria are compatible to the farm soil and plant variety used, and it is important to select the most effective plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) that can act synergistically with the microbiomes supplied by biofertlisers, such as the SoiLife product, and that are compatible to each farmer’s individual farming conditions.
Approach and Methodology
Hemp seeds (cv. Mountain Mango, ACDC, Maverick) were germinated on 23 August 2023 in 30-cell trays (approx. 180 seeds per variety for each trial; ~100 seeds for ACDC) using the specific farm soil. At 10 days after sowing (2 September 2023), plants were treated with various SoiLife-Microbe combinations using approx. 9 mL of biofertilizer per plant. A repeat treatment was performed 10 days later (14 September
2023) with a reduced dosage (33% less rhizosphere bacteria) using the SoiLife feeder product.
To generate SoiLife-Microbe biofertiliser combinations, pure bacterial cultures were first streaked on YEP agar medium on Petrie dishes before using single colonies to inoculate 4 mL YEP liquid precultures that were grown on an orbital shaker at room temperature for 48 hours. These were then used as inoculum for 50 mL cultures that were grown for another 48 hours. Fresh cultures (15 mL each) were added to 250 mL freshly prepared 1:10 diluted SoiLife product to generate each SoiLife-Microbe combination. SoiLife Feeder product (250 mL per treatment) was supplemented with 10 mL freshly grown cultures. Plant growth was visually monitored and, to account for differences in germination, increases of leaf growth (rather than leaf sizes), were measured. For this purpose, a baseline measurement of leaf diameters (first leaves after cotyledons) was performed on the day of treatments (2 September 2023) just prior to the treatments. Leaf size increases were then measured for the primary and secondary leaves (excluding the cotyledons) at 11 days after treatments (13 September 2023), and the increase in leaf size was calculated by subtracting the base values. Following growth for another 12 days, leaf fresh weights were then measured for each plant (25 September 2023).
Average values and standard errors were calculated for each dataset for each variety and treatment, and graphs were produced displaying average leaf growth promotion, leaf fresh weights and yield increases with standard errors to account for statistical significance.
In this trial, SoiLife, in collaboration with the Sustainable Solutions Hub, have used a customised approach to determine the most effective crop variety-microbe
combinations that are effective in the soil of the Organic Farm, by using a pot trial with soil and plant varieties supplied from the Organic Farm. A total of approx. 540 hemp plants, including varieties, Mountain Mango, ACDC and Maverick, were tested in pot trials using specific farm soil with five different soil rhizosphere bacteria in combination with the SoiLife product. These included SL-6D, SL-8, SL-10, SL-46 and SL-67 that have previously shown good plant promotion results with several vegetable crops. Approx. 30 biological replicates were used for each product-variety combination to gain sufficient statistical significance.
The full paper can be found here.
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